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February 27, 2006
Marvel for the ages
I had a bit of a triumph today when I realized that I am working on similar issues in all of my courses. Comparative Literature Professor Marinos Pourgouris humbled me when he asked me to present my interpretation of Book XIII of the Odyssey to our "Odysseus Across the Centuries" class today. From Fagles' traslation:
But now Poseidon, god of the earthquake, never once forgetting the first threats he leveled at the hero, probed almighty Zeus to learn his plans in full: "Zeus, Father, I will lose all my honor now among the immortals, now there are mortal men who show me no respect-- Phaeacians, too, born of my own loins! I said myself that Odysseus would suffer long and hard before he made it home, but I never dreamed of blocking his return, not absolutely at least, once you had pledged your word and bowed your head. But now they've swept him across the sea in their swift ship, they've set him down in Ithaca, sound asleep, and loaded the man with boundless gifts-- bronze and hoards of gold and robes-- aye, more plunder than he could have ever won from Troy if Odysseus had returned intact with ihs fair share!"
"Incredible, Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied. "Earth-Shaker, you with your massive power, why moaning so? The gods don't disrespect you. What a stir there'd be if they flung abuse at the oldest, noblest of them all. Those mortals? If any man, so lost in his strength and prowess, pays you no respect-- just pay him back. The power is always yours. Do what you like. Whatever warms your heart."
"King of the dark cloud," the earthquake god agreed, "I'd like to avenge myself at once, as you advise, but I've always feared you wrath and shied away. But now I'll crush that fine Phaeacian cutter out on the misty sea, now on her homeward run from the latest convoy. They will learn at last to cease and desist from escorting every man alive-- I'll pile a huge mountain round about their port!"
"Wait, dear brother," Zeus who collects the clouds had second thoughts. "Here's what seems best to me. As the people all lean down from the city heights to watch her speeding home, strike her into a rock that looks like a racing vessel, just offshore-- amaze all men with a marvel for the ages. Then pile your huge mountain round about their port.
Hearing that from Zeus, the god of the earthquake sped to Scheria now, the Phaeacians' island home, and waited there till the ship came sweeping in, scudding lightly along-- surging close abreast, the earthquake god with one flat stroke of his hand struck her to stone, rooted her to the ocean floor and made for open sea.
The Phaeacians, aghast, those lords of the long oars, the master mariners traded startled glances, sudden outcries: "Look-- who's pinned our swift ship to the sea?"
"Just racing home!"
"Just hove into plain view!"
And my analysis:
Poseidon, no stranger to vengeance, saved his most mordant move in this tale for the overwhelming moment of Odysseus’ landing at Ithaca. The return from war for a king of his stature should be triumphant and proud. Instead, the episode is confusing, tragic and cloaked in mist and ignorance. Rather than recognize his home turf, which he could only dream about for the two decades he was away from it (I can only imagine he knew every cave, hill and stream of it), Odysseus awakes in a haze, despairing that he has been delivered on yet another alien shore. At this point, whether the inhabitants of the island are hostile or friendly, he could expect the same grinding fate. Odysseus is doubly ignorant of the fate of his saviors. Across the sea, the Phaeacians are being tormented on his account. Next to the Trojans, the disaster they suffer as a civilization is unparalleled. With the people brimming with pride on shore, the gods conspire to smash their ship in full view, an intentionally horrifying act that resonates in our age of symbolic violence (like the delay between hijacked planes flying into the World Trade Center). But Poseidon’s terrorism has two parts, for he is not content merely to shock the Phaeacians for their unbounded generosity. The mountain he deposits in their harbor undoes their civilization, a sailing people who may, mere generations later, behold their “winnowing fans” with as much disbelief as the highlanders Odysseus is fated to find. And as those people who most warmly treasured the wayward hero—who cleaned and fed him before sending him home laden with treasure, setting him to rest on his land with extreme care—are enduring their cataclysm, Odysseus hurls idle insults at them for their stinginess. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the scene is its brevity. In a breath, the narrator violates the most beloved and devoted, the most gracious and dimensional characters of the epic. They represent the half blessed, half cursed legacy that Odysseus bears, a survivor who inspires confidence and compassion but also invites chaos and death. They were his captivated audience, and after Poseidon’s assault, their love for Odysseus, which made them so noble, must melt to agony.
Not 20 minutes earlier, I had been discussing the same issue with Professor Kay Warren after our Violence & the Media class. I'm writing a paper on the topic "Connected to Violence" that addresses the strategies of performed violence, essentially as terrorism. It was striking to see the father of the gods doing in the great epic what brutally effective terrorists do today.
A short description of where I'm headed with that paper, from email correspondence:
I'm writing about connections to (and disconnections from) violence as a major determining factor in how it can be carried out despite awareness by witnesses, perpetrators, etc. This is a theme in Nordstrom (among the many readings that deal with this) and resonates strongly in the Vincent Chin story and in Crash. I'm also excited about integrating a few outside sources: Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote about alienation and fundamental compassion; there are ancient and contemporary examples of how violence can be set very intentionally before an audience. So I'm really talking about how violence is something we feel because we know that we are all more similar than different, and I'm talking about how that connection can be both smothered or exploited with catastrophic effects.
I think I may have a unique interpretation of the relationship between stereotypes and representational strategies (at least, I'm a little unsure that I'm seeing it in the terms that the questions suggests). As I alluded to before, I see the portrayals we've looked at as products of strategies by editors, directors, actors, lawyers, and everyone who is acting as an advocate of some POV and interpretation. I see a number of stereotypes that fit into these narratives (a whole slate of victims are thoroughly recast: Vincent Chin, Rodney King, poachers, and even Ethel Rosenberg today, who becomes a witch, harder to kill than her husband, extra-human). Am I right to fit stereotypes into these strategies, and to connect them to wider issues of (re)interpretation practiced by all story-tellers?
Posted by Henry Shepherd at February 27, 2006 07:39 PM
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