Friday, October 21, 2016
An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind?
In Book 22 of the Odyssey Odysseus -- with the help of Athena and Telemachus -- exacts his revenge on the suitors, killing them all, as well as his disloyal servants and maids. Yet, after Odysseus and Penelope are reunited the book does not end. Odysseus and Telemachus retreat to the countryside to fight the kin of the slaughtered suitors who are themselves seeking vengeance. Only with the intervention of Athena is a bloodbath averted. What is the ending of the story telling us about the value of vengeance? Is is necessary to restore order but dangerous? Is it a foolish and counterproductive practice? Does it make the whole world blind or is it the only way to establish a just society?
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Suppose for this response Athena decides not to go out of her way to help a mortal. After roughly 15 years of Odysseus being gone, the suitors come to Penelope. The suitors drain Odysseus's riches, and morally hurt him by courting his wife and plotting to kill his son. In retaliation, Odysseus kills all of the suitors. As a result of this, the suitors family then goes out to kill Odysseus's' family. This cycle could go on for generations with no foreseeable ending until either Odysseus's' family is gone, or the suitors' families are gone. In this case, the easiest solution would be for both sides to accept what happened, and move on. Unfortunately, this is impossible for people to do when their family is directly involved. Now the reader asks, "Is it possible for this to happen again? Or, will some other system take place to end this re-occurrence?" The most optimistic outcome is a law-system is created. One that says the suitors will be paid in full for what they have done. Not a penny more, not a penny less. This is good, because it discourages events like this from happening in the future, and it gives clearance for the current case. Another brilliance of this system, the families of the system can't get angry at the system, because they are part of the country. They can stage their dislikes, but the verdict is the verdict. This is unlike Odysseus's plan, where he kills all the suitors with no net to fall back on. Pessimistically, Odysseus's bloodline runs dry, and the suitors families are content.
ReplyDeleteThe end of the Odyssey describes vengeance as a good thing and something that must happen. In the book, Odysseus killing the suitors is a long awaited moment for him. Odysseus’s goal was to return back to Ithaca to see Penelope and seek vengeance on the suitors. The book describes vengeance as something that must happen and something that should happen. The book thinks vengeance should be merciless and that even if somebody betrays you in a small way you should still seek vengeance. An example of this is when the maids are told to wipe the blood of the suitors of the floor and are later hung. Odysseus orders to, “’start clearing away the bodies [of the suitors) Make the women pitch in too. Chairs and tables-scrub them down with sponges, rinse them clean. And once you’ve put the entire house in order, march the women out of the great hall-between the roundhouse and the courtyard’s strong stockade-and hack them with your swords, slash out their lives-blot out their minds the joys of love they relished under the suitors’ bodies, rutting on the sly” (Homer, 22. 462-470)! This shows that in Ancient Greek culture vengeance should be sought on all who betray you even if it is in a small way in the Odyssey. In my mind, vengeance should only be properly exacted through an appropriate legal practice in the pursuit of justice and fairness for society as a whole. Vengeance on an individual level almost always results in an escalation of violence, tension, and injustice. Wrong doing without repercussions is inherently unfair and some path to correct and punish wrongs in society. Always seeking vengeance fro wrong doings (even if they are small) is not a way to run a just society. I believe that is dumb for people to constantly seek vengeance from issues in the past when they should be looking ahead to the future. Even if vengeance is sought on a person it will most likely not change their mindset and they will still do what they did again. It is not the just way of dealing with issues.
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ReplyDeleteThe ending of the story proves that vengeance is a highly prominent value in ancient Greece. By placing this event at the end of the book makes it more memorable to the reader. Therefore, vengeance can be interpreted as a more important value within the ancient Greek culture. Also, the amount of times vengeance is a leading factor in characters’ backstories or stories told in the epic that were significant demonstrates the importance of this value. Examples of those who perused vengeance were Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, Hephaestus, god of blacksmithing, Achilles, and Poseidon. Two of these figures enacted their vengeance by generating physical and emotional hardship for the target while the others were aiming for the outcome of death. From the set of people, listed above, the reader can conclude that the severity of the revenge depends on the initial crime committed. Additionally, from the responses about vengeance from supporting characters in the book, the audience can also notice that vengeance, most of the time, is used to subside the emotional stress of the main character or characters affected by the misconduct of the perpetrator. At any point throughout the book, there was not a single person praising vengeance unless it was the person delivering. It is important to restore order, but not in such a way that has the possibility of being performed in an erratic fashion. For instance, if two people were to commit the same crime on two totally different people, it is up to the victims to determine their punishment, and depending on morals of that person, the punishments can be mild or severe towards the perpetrator. Another factor that can make this system an unreliable to restore order in a society is personal bias. In a modern court system today, everyone is likely to have some sort of bias in a case, but it is distributed around many people. While having a personal bias whilst pursuing vengeance, the avenger is free to perform punishment they desire. I feel that acts of vengeance involving death, have been counterproductive. When the bloodshed is over, there is a high possibility that another feud can brew, and has the possibility of staying with those affected for years or generations depending on severity. Overall, the act of vengeance makes the world blind. To have vengeance as a solution to everything doesn’t leave space for societies expand for different solutions and how to develop forgiveness towards people that hurt you. If everyone had the opportunity for vengeance, then this form of punishment would eventually become abused by those who are huge threat to the well-being of a functioning or growing society. Which, eventually, could lead to the downfall of many families and potentially a whole civilization.
In the end of the Odyssey when all of the suitors were slaughtered it shows that revenge is important to Odysseus and probably almost anyone else in Greek society. In the story of Odysseus there was just one need for revenge after another. For example, there was Polyphemus the cyclops who wanted revenge on Odysseus for taking his eye out, and the many more that happened in the book that I will not mention. Originally eye for an eye meant that you can only do what someone did to you, and in Odysseus case he went over board by killing all of the suitors because all they did was eat him out of house and home witch is a minor offence. Overall eye for an eye tooth for a tooth is flawed from the start because there are always two side to any story. In this story what one man did for vengeance could be seen by another man as a random act of violence, and in the end you would have no people left because there would be a circle of violence of someone killing someone and then the son or brother of the deceased then going for the victor of the feud. In the end it is not necessary because it has many down falls and is not a steady system of law.
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