The style of the odyssey appears to me, especially in the first half, as more of a collection of tales stringed together by their loose tether to Odysseus. A closer look at Odysseus’ personal journey, however, makes this theme more apparent.
Odysseus seems to constantly have an identity crisis going on throughout the epic. It seems to tie into his lying nature; Odysseus, more often than not, tends to lead with a well-thought and elaborate persona than anything resembling the truth of his identity, even in situations where it is not entirely necessary
Odysseus’ cannot stop his lying nature even when he is finally on familiar land. He continues playing mind games with Penelope and Laertes. It is like he doesn’t know who he is without his lies. His identity is brought back through the small recognitions: the scare recognized by his old maid, the wedding bed carved into the olive tree that only his wife knows about. These are what finally cements Odysseus’ identity back in Ithaca where it belongs.
In the cyclops’ cave, Odysseus adopts the persona of Nobody (Outis) — no one special. In doing so, he erases his titles, his kleos, his very being. This erasure is signified by the epithet Outidanos good-for-nothing, a derivate of Outis, that is applied in the Iliad to erase a hero’s epic identity1.
Taking up the Outis epithet goes against Odysseus’ heroic nature. He can’t even make himself hold onto that epithet for too long; his ego ends up getting the better of him. When he reveals his identity to King Alcinous, “he speaks his name in an utterly objective manner”2. The epic Greek hero Odysseus, cunning trickster and favorite of Athena is not just his identity; it goes beyond him.
This reputation of his gets tiring as his journey and identity of a hero slowly crushes him. One of the first temptations to give up everything is after his crew opens the wind bag and he thinks “Should I leap over the side and drown at once?” (10.34). This temptation for death follows him, either by suicide or by recklessness and relaxing the need for constant vigilance that had saved him more than once.
The temptation also surfaces in other ways on his journey. Odysseus struggles with returning to his former life after ten years’ of war. This is seen with his interactions of the sirens and Calypso as they both offer ways to stay in the past, albeit in different ways. The sirens offer this in the most literal sense, urging for Odysseus to hear their song as they know all about the pains the Greek endured at Troy. They are offering Odysseus a way to relive the past with them, to hear the stories of the ten years for he knows that once he returns to Ithaca, there will be no one there who would understand what those years were like (12.200). This invitation to live in the past, however, is a kind of death.
Calypso, on the other hand, offers immortality and a paradise away from trouble. Immortality is something Greek heroes yearn for. Achilles chooses a short life in order to immortalize his name and Heracles had to undergo a fiery, agonizing death to win it. Calypso offers to make Odysseus “immortal, ageless for all his days” (5.151) for the price that Odysseus stays on her paradise island with her. This would lead to a death of his self; Odysseus would have to give up his family, his kingdom, if he stayed on the island.
This is resolved once he sees for himself what it means to be dead on his trip to the underworld, and he becomes determined once again to make it home alive.
The power of femineity plays a central role in the epic, with Odysseys being surrounded by female forces that either stop him form returning or play a key part of his faith, acting as main elements inside his story. In first few stanzas, Kalypso is introduced who holds him back from going home. Then there is Naucissa (in book 6) who is the primary tool responsible for Odysseus’ salvation, used by Athena. In order to gain passage on a ship to Ithaca, he needs to ask the favor of Arete, once again dependent on female power.