The Odyssey, Reimagined
for centuries Western civilization has read The Odyssey
not as a cautionary tale
but rather as a blueprint for how to live your life,
particularly as part of an imperialistic tradition,
manifesting your destiny:
refuse to allow limitation,
instead, use effort and will to overcome and dominate,
it reduces the male to a stereotype:
don't rest until you subdue your rival,
prove your worth,
be superior to another,
whatever the cost,
whatever the consequences,
the Greek defeat of the Trojans a paradigm,
the Romans used that paradigm
to take from other countries,
so that their success was zero-sum,
any addition based on the subtraction from another,
gender not only binary but determinative,
a leader should use his aggression
and change the world to suit him,
no matter the costs,
not to make the world better
but to make the world dance to your whims,
like in those old cowboy movies
where the gunslinger would force somebody to "dance"
by firing shots near their feet,
I taught The Odyssey to eighth graders for decades
in hope that my students could realize and grasp
a narrative that still drives many in this Western world,
all based on a favorite story the Greeks told themselves,
misogyny underlies much of the basic story,
just as it still does in this culture,
with men as the ones to act
and women judged by their faithfulness and subservience,
the Earth Mothers who dominated before Zeus
were shackled into subservience,
though the god Helen
is almost unique in expressing
how the Greeks knew deep down
the truth of the importance of the female living her power,
even in their male-dominated pantheon,
Christopher Nolan took the charge from this epic story
and created a version of it to share with us in 2026 CE,
the power of the story still partly in the action sequences,
still partly in the fantastic that challenges our hero,
and though he overcomes them,
Nolan makes sure Odysseus notices the prices he pays,
Nolan wants Odysseus, his protagonist, to be a hero,
but a hero who deeply knows his flaws,
the deaths he feels forced to allow, to even encourage,
his love of home, of partner, of offspring, primal,
but his delight in his own cleverness equally primal,
and disastrous in its consequence,
in the horror that his directed victory at Troy releases,
the human cost of a victory that feels Pyrrhic to him,
as were the protracted mis-adventures on the way home,
where many of his men die, and he is responsible,
his wife and son suffer as the suitors of Penelope
seek her hand and the power inherent
in being the male in charge of Ithaca,
Odysseus returns, and rights the scales,
but at what cost to his soul?
Nolan ends the movie with son Telemachus, King of Ithaca,
and Odysseus and Penelope off on a sail into the West,
maybe echoing such a journey from Tolkien's mythic telling
of endings which are really not final,
Christopher Nolan challenges us
to notice how our stories drive us,
and of the price we pay with our moments
when we assert our will,
and have to deal with the reckoning that ensues,
The Odyssey is a cautionary tale.
by Henry H. Walker
July 31, ‘26
