The Odyssey Themes

(Click the themes infographic to download.) The characters in the Odyssey are definitely not free to be you and me. Their destinies are just that: destiny, and there's not much room to change wh...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Odyssey, piety involves way more than going to church on Sundays, and it has a lot more to do with your day-to-day actions than how you feel i...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) There may be a lot of justice in The Odyssey, but there isn't a court of law to be found. Justice seems to be based around some divine sense of cause-...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Fair enough: Odysseus has a lot to be proud of. He's smart, strong, brave, and good-looking; he's married to a hot, loyal wife; and did we mention his...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In the Odyssey, honesty is most definitely not the best policy. In fact—as we learn when Odysseus idiotically tells Polyphemos his name and addressâ€...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In an accurate reflection of ancient Greek culture, rules of hospitality are among the most revered social and religious laws in the Odyssey. Men are m...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) It's not surprising that the Odyssey is full of suffering: its characters live in a world without antibiotics, painkillers, and iTunes. (They actually...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Frankly, trying to keep up with the list of dos and don'ts in ancient Greece is enough to make us want to lie down with an US Weekly and a can of Diet...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) No one told him life was going to be this way—but if he has to spend ten years heading home from a decade-long war, at least Odysseus gets to do it w...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) First, Odysseus fights a 10-year-long war. Then, he almost loses his men to a bunch of druggies, is captured by a Cyclops, wins Poseidon's wrath, gets...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In the Odyssey, blood is most definitely thicker than water. Your deeds (or misdeed) don't just reflect on you; they reflect on the honor and reputatio...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In Ancient Greece, hospitality meant a lot more than giving your guest the most crumb-free seat on the Ikea couch. They had a whole word for the relati...