One of the major aspects of the last few chapters that we have read is the sheer amount of work the gods, especially Athena, are doing to get Odysseus home. Ranging from convincing people to do certain actions, to messing with other gods, the whole story is basically, "how can I manipulate these people to help this one guy get to where he wants to be?"
We see the first of Athena's manipulation in how she convinces Telemachus to try and find out what happened to his dad and restore order to his household. The effect that this has is fairly large in terms how Athena's plan to help the household of Odysseus does work and makes sure that Odysseus does have a house to return to.
In addition to this Athena convinces the other gods to also help Odysseus, causing him to be able to escape from Calypso's island easily, and also allows him to survive Poseidon's attempts on his life. After all of this Athena gets Nausicaa to wake him up through a long series of manipulations including coming to her in a dream to convince her to wash her clothes and put the idea of marriage in her mind, and then while this happens change the path of a ball to land in a pool so that a seemingly very marriageable man wakes up and wants her help. After this Athena helps him find the castle and tells him how to gain favor with the royal family, and helps him more by announcing his presence to the whole town.
In short, we haven't really been able to see Odysseus as a hero much so far, other than his cunning and physical strength (which was affected by Athena as well), and most of the story has been about how Athena is helping Odysseus. I hope we will be able to see Odysseus solve some problems by himself in the future.
We see the first of Athena's manipulation in how she convinces Telemachus to try and find out what happened to his dad and restore order to his household. The effect that this has is fairly large in terms how Athena's plan to help the household of Odysseus does work and makes sure that Odysseus does have a house to return to.
In addition to this Athena convinces the other gods to also help Odysseus, causing him to be able to escape from Calypso's island easily, and also allows him to survive Poseidon's attempts on his life. After all of this Athena gets Nausicaa to wake him up through a long series of manipulations including coming to her in a dream to convince her to wash her clothes and put the idea of marriage in her mind, and then while this happens change the path of a ball to land in a pool so that a seemingly very marriageable man wakes up and wants her help. After this Athena helps him find the castle and tells him how to gain favor with the royal family, and helps him more by announcing his presence to the whole town.
In short, we haven't really been able to see Odysseus as a hero much so far, other than his cunning and physical strength (which was affected by Athena as well), and most of the story has been about how Athena is helping Odysseus. I hope we will be able to see Odysseus solve some problems by himself in the future.
