Reaching out and escaping from other: Odysseus

This chapter explores the unique portrayal of alterity in the character of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus embodies the experience of itinerancy and deviation, which symbolically define his journey home after the Trojan War. Through his constant confrontation with diverse worldviews, he recreates his own heroic identity, representing a new ideal of heroism different from the one proposed in the Iliad. As the autodiegetic narrator, Odysseus reveals a symbolic proximity to the figure of the aoidos, which is essential to understanding the Homeric poems’ peculiar nature in the context of oral tradition. In the first part of the poem, the Apologues from books 9 to 12 emphasise the hero’s fantastic cartography through the unknown, legitimising his identity before the Phaeacian hosts. In the second part, books 13–24, the falsified narratives presented as a defensive concealment strategy stand out, with a similar structural and semantic pattern. Odysseus’ narrative elocution allows him to regain his heroic identity before strangers who do not know him in the first part of the poem, whereas in the second part, it camouflages his identity before those who may recognise him. The functional analogy between the two types of narrative elocution of Odysseus is connoted with the poetic creator’s artistic capacity, as seen when Eumaeus compares his seduction to that of the aedo. This chapter analyses Odysseus’ multiple autodiegetic narratives and their relevance in the historical and poetic context of the great war’s upheavals on human experiences. By examining the character of Odysseus and his narrative techniques, this chapter contributes to understanding the Odyssey’s unique approach to alterity and its role in the development of heroic identity.