A Colossal Wave of Perseverance

Transcription

1 1 A Colossal Wave of Perseverance Tyler Carrier December 8, 2011 Civilization They spun in flight to the city, wild to save their lives, but losing a savage cry, the long-enduring great Odysseus, gathering all his force, swooped like a soaring eagle (Homer, 485). At end of the Odyssey, after Odysseus s journey, he comes back to Ithaca with vengeance and ready to take back what was rightfully his. This semester, the first part of the Honors sequence, has presented us with an array of text. Each one of the texts presented the reader with a hero and the journey that the hero went on to come out of his cave and become more enlightened. To get through the journey, the hero has to be mentally tough to be able to persevere through adversity. Throughout the Honors texts, more specifically The Odyssey, Inanna and Plato s Republic there was the consistent theme of the perseverance of the hero. The definition of perseverance was what Odysseus went through. He was steadily determined to overcome a course of actions, with a purpose in spite of difficulties and obstacles. What was different about Odysseus s journey was that even though he wanted to fight, he was forced out of his palace to a place that he had never been before. The mental toughness of Odysseus to persevere through the challenges that the Gods put before him while on his twenty-year journeys home is one of the most epic journey that a character has endured. While on this long, excruciating journey Odysseus continued to follow the heroic code. The heroic code is as follows, to always be the best, better than anyone else and to do everything to

2 2 help your friends and family while only harming your enemies and enemies of your friends (Professor Passman). Throughout his journey, Odysseus came across countless battles with unimaginable tasks that he had to overcome to return home. These battles could only be overcome by warriors that were willing to fighting against the odds and persevere through the challenges. One of the most devastating events was when Odysseus was told he could go home by Zeus, but once Poseidon, the god of the sea and earthquakes, heard about his departure he decided to develop a storm in order to halt his journey. While at sea a massive wave came crashing down on his head, a terrific onslaught spinning his craft round and round he was thrown clear of the docks (Homer, 162). Along with destroying his ship, the waves also destroyed his hopes and dreams. On this epic voyage, one massive hurtle was not sufficient enough. After the depleting obstacle that Odysseus was faced with, he was faced with a colossal oneeyed monster, named Cyclops. Once Odysseus enters Cyclops cave he had the thought to, steal up to him, draw the sharp sword at my hip and stab his chest, but then realized that it was an impossible task and had to figure a strategy to defeat the monster (Homer, 221). Once the battle was about to take action Odysseus had to fight for his life, city, and family. What was in front of Odysseus did not appear clear until, he loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round and we scuttled back in terror. The monster wrenched the spike from his eye and out it came with a red geyser of blood (Homer, ). After finding the courage to fighting the monster, Odysseus fought the monster and won the battle. The perseverance that Odysseus expressed in this scene was remarkable because after being on a ship for

3 3 as long as he was and the battle taking place in a dark cave is a tough scenario as it is. To add onto that, being in the monster s home made the task near impossible, but he fought against all odds and pulled out on top. The determination of Odysseus to continue on his voyage back to his homeland is astonishing. Through his journey Odysseus was faced with challenges that tested him in all aspects of life. When thinking of the word hero, the adjectives courage, brave, and noble come to mind because a hero is someone that risks their life for the greater good of the people that they belong to. Inanna was the goddess of sexual love, fertility, wisdom, and warfare. In the Sumerian myth about the goddess of Heaven and Earth, Inanna decided that she would open her ear from the Great Above to the Great Below. She made decided to descend because she intended on seeing her older sister, Ereshkigal, and wanted to witness the funeral rites of Ereshkigal s husband, Gugalanna. With that decision she choose to descend to the underworld. The decision that she made directly follows the heroic code because she put her family above her seven cities. Before the start of her journey, Inanna decided that she would give up her powers, making her mortal. Because she gave up her powers, it made the journey tougher and less of a chance that she would come back. Before Inanna left she said, If I do not return, set up a lament for me by the ruins (Inanna, 53), which expressed that she was doubtful that without her powers she could come back. While in the underworld, the only part that was a challenge for Inanna was coming back. Before she was going to ascend the Queen of the underworld told her that, no one ascends from the underworld unmarked (Inanna, 68). When Inanna decided to

4 4 ascend, the demons of the underworld clung to her side (Inanna, 70). Inanna did not abide by the rules of the underworld and being a mortal she should of not made it back to the above. Through the hardship from the Galla, Inanna used all of her mortal abilities to convince the demons to let her go back to where she belonged. In her time of hardship, she used the rest of skills that she still had to get here where she needed to go. The experience without her powers that Inanna faced forced her into becoming more enlightened as a goddess. To go along with Odysseus and Inanna, Socrates presented a new variation that allowed the hero to persevere despite adversity. Socrates s cave is the ideal scenario for a hero to persevere because the cave takes the hero out of their cave of norm. Socrates s cave is typically described as, human beings in a cave like dwelling underground having a long pathway open to the light all across the cave (Plato, 210, 514A). In the cave, the human beings are restrained to only look at what is right in front of them. This only allows them to know what they have in front of them and nothing else. When one of them is released, they are commanded to stand up, then forced to turn and stare at the light. Then forced to walk out of their cave of norm into a different and larger cave. During the process of going from a smaller cave to a bigger cave the hero is at first alienated. The human that stands up, turns around, and faces the light is the hero in the Republic because he is the human being that is going through the journey, while the others are not participating. The individual that stands up and goes out of the cave to a larger cave is following the heroic code. The human that stands up is bettering their self more than the others human beings because the others have not changed

5 5 their ways. Therefore, the standing human being has preformed a task to always be the best. The perseverance does not begin to occur until the human being is walking up the stairs, out of the cave. For a human being to persevere, they have to make it up the stairs and out of the cave. In the cave the human awkwardly goes up the stairs to the divine. Walking away from what you know best without giving into the temptation of going back to the cave of norm is tougher than Odysseus or Inanna s journey because they know what its like to have something else, and the human beings in the cave know nothing better, which allows them to go back easier than the other two heroes. The journey in the Republic was closer to Inanna s journey than Odysseus s journey because Inanna was going to a world that she has never been to before, similar to the to the Republic. Being in another world made their journeys tougher because they were in an unfamiliar territory. When looking back at these three heroes journeys I saw a strong correlation to the Honors Endeavor. In this situation I saw that I was the hero in my story, going to college was the journey to find where I am going to go in life. I have felt that the Honors Endeavor is the massive waves, one-eyed monsters, or the demons that are faced before myself and to become a more enlightened person I need to walk out of my cave of norm to a less familiar cave. The Honors Endeavor gives us the fire to move up the stairs, out of the cave, and past some of the bigger waves that we will face in our lifetimes. The first honors sequence has featured us with an arrangement of texts that have given us themes that we can take from the text and incorporate it into our own lives. The texts that we have been presented with are similar to icebergs; they are

6 6 small above the surface, but when analyzed and dug into deeper they are tens of times deeper below the surface. After working with the texts throughout the semester I have found part of the iceberg that is under the surface. Inanna shows us how we can make our own choices to go on a journey and shows us that we can make it from the bottom to the top with having nothing along the way. Odysseus voyage shows us how even when impossible tasks are thrown our way that it is possible to defeat that task if you had determination and perseverance any hero can help out the people that he is associated with. Plato s Republic shows us for any of this to happen you can not keep living in your cave of norm and you have to turn your head to the light and go against what you know to become more enlightened.

7 7 Bibliography Homer, and Robert Fagles. The Odyssey. New York: Viking, Print. Plato, and Joe Sachs. Republic. Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub., Print. Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth : Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. London: Rider, Print. Passman, Tina. "Week 6: The Odyssey." Vimeo, Video Sharing For You. 4 Oct Web. 07 Dec <