The Odyssey and a Shattered Conscience
“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”[1]
Why do stories like The Odyssey endure from one generation to the next? I mean, the story is well over two thousand years old. Aren’t we tired of it? Evidently the answer is no, as Christopher Nolan’s interpretation is performing remarkably well at the box office. So, why? The perennial appeal of stories like The Odyssey, broadly speaking, is that they enrich our understanding of what it means to be human. This is a story filled with twists and turns. But so is life, isn’t it? That being the case, one can quite easily read (or watch) oneself into the plot. We’re merrily going along our way then, all of a sudden, we’re face to face with a challenge. Then another arises, and another. That is why stories like this endure. We need exemplars of resilience and courage. We need wisdom for navigating the complexities and pains of life. In a word, we need help. And the older I get (alas!) the more I value stories like this and the more reluctant I am simply to dismiss them as sophomoric mythology. In fact, I would go so far as to claim that you, dear reader, resonate with this story more than you think. More than that, I think this story may have the power to change your life. My reason for thinking this is that this story is not merely about a hero fighting monsters. It’s the story of a person with a shattered conscience.
Two Puzzles in the Odyssey
Philosopher of film, Tom Price, has said that there are two puzzles at the centre of Nolan’s film. First, what kind of man, or king, is Odysseus? Second, who is actually in control of the events, the crew, Odysseus himself? The gods? Fate? Odysseus?[2] These puzzles are closely connected to the question of Odysseus’s conscience. The forces acting upon him, together with the kind of man he is and becomes, shape his moral perception, his guilt, and his response to the violence around him. I therefore want to consider the film’s two central puzzles through the lens of Odysseus’s conscience.
The Moral Rupture
The hero, Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, is portrayed as an honourable man. One who observes the sacred moral code called “Zeus’s Law” (xenia in Homeric literature). Zeus’s Law demands that one treat strangers as one would want to be treated (one never knows, after all, when one may be entertaining a god). To demonstrate how earnestly Odysseus is in abiding by this moral code, even while hunting, he plucks his bow so the animal will know he is present. And it is the breaking of Zeus’s Law that is the moral rupture at the heart of the whole story.
The rupture takes place after Agamemnon (a Greek king comically dubbed “Aura-memnon” by the internet) and his army besiege the city of Troy for ten gruelling years. Odysseus, a general, conceives the plan of hiding soldiers in a Trojan Horse. The Greeks make it appear that they have abandoned the campaign, leaving behind this peace offering, a gift. The Trojans welcome the gift into the bosom of Troy. Then, sure enough, twists and turns follow. The Greek army conquers the city. This is what shatters the conscience of Odysseus. Reflecting on the sacking of Troy, Odysseus says, “Ten years of rage pour into that city in one night”. Odysseus, feeling the weight of responsibility, since it was his idea after all, laments, “[w]e left them a gift, an offering of peace, that they took into their home. We violated all that’s ever sacred between people.”
The Sea and Monsters were Never the Obstacle
Nolan stages what follows brilliantly. Every island Odysseus reaches afterwards becomes a fresh violation of the same law that he broke first, as though the whole world has begun imitating his crime back at him. Polyphemus, the Cyclops, violates the guest code by devouring the men who came to his cave for food. The Laestrygonians (giant warriors) offer no welcome at all, only slaughter. What looks like a series of twists and turns (allegorical of the challenges of life) is really one long, guilt-and-shame-haunted echo of the Trojan Horse scene. The clearest moment comes with the Sirens. Odysseus insists on hearing their song, bound to the mast, of course, and what he hears is not so much a lure toward death as a truth about himself: he does not actually want to go home because he cannot face what he has become. The sea and monsters were never really the obstacle. His conscience was.
Can Bloodshed Heal a Blood-Stained Conscience?
Yet the ending Homer gives Odysseus, and Nolan keeps, is not really an ending to this at all, is it? I mean, Odysseus does make it home. He reunites with his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. So far, so good, right? But then, he proceeds to slaughter the suitors who have overrun his house before embracing exile and honouring the men who died under his command. Twists and turns! The charitable reading of this, I suppose, is that this final exile is a kind of penance through which Odysseus atones for breaking Zeus’s Law and finally relinquishes control of his life. But the attentive viewer in the theatre cannot help but ponder the nature of this penance: it’s simply more killing. If Zeus’s Law means anything, treating others as you would want to be treated, it means, at the very least, not killing as you would not want to be killed. It is hard to see how adding to the body count is the answer to a conscience shattered by the same actions. His answer to a broken conscience is restored honour, and in his world, restored honour is often bought with blood. Anyone who recognises Odysseus’s shattered conscience in themselves, and I suspect a great many of us do, may walk out of the theatre feeling dissatisfied. The experience left me wondering, “Is that it?”
The Blood of Honour and the Blood of Christ
As I wrestled with the Homeric epic’s unsatisfying ending, I couldn’t help but reflect upon the vastly richer biblical solution to a shattered conscience. Odysseus restores his honour by shedding blood that is owed: guilty men paying for their guilt. By contrast, Jesus restores what is shattered in us not by shedding the blood of others but by shedding his own. He himself lovingly bears the cost, breaking the cycle of retaliatory violence. Odysseus’s exile is a penance that he must go on paying indefinitely (a brutal consequence for Telemachus, I might add). Christ’s exile, that is, his forsakenness on the cross, is paid once, so that ours need not be endless. Finally, Odysseus’s conscience, I suspect, is never fully quieted. In the end, Zeus’s Law was broken and broken it remained. Jesus, however, having paid our moral and spiritual debt “once and for all” (e.g., Hebrews 7:27), possesses the redemptive power to restore and heal what was once shattered, giving rise to a conscience that is not merely quieted but finally at peace.
[1] Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Viking, 1996), 1.1–2.
[2] I am very grateful to Tom Price, who read earlier drafts of this piece and offered a number of valuable suggestions.
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Alanzo Paul