The Long Search for Identity As Revealed,

In Surprisingly Subtle Symbolism in
Book Thirteen of Homer’s Poem, The Odyssey

Michael Chorost

Brown University

Identity, like fortune, can be lost and found--perhaps more often lost than found, as in the long struggle of the adolescent for knowledge of himself. Not knowing who or what he is, he tries on and discards masks and disguises uncertainly: arrogance, kindness, a stranger, a lover. The instability is painful; but the individual who survives the rigors of the search ultimately finds his identity. The uncertain adolescent eventually discovers what fits him best, and grows into a stable and integrated adult.

This struggle for identity is perennial: the Odyssey clearly reverberates with the echoes of this personal turmoil. Homer’s protagonist, Odysseus, struggles with the problem of who he is throughout the poem. Long barred from returning to his family and throne in Ithaca, he is not what he should be--a king, a warrior, a husband, a father. Instead, he is a lonely vagabond, a prisoner and an exile: the states of non-existence. In his attempt to counter this loss of identity, Odysseus invents and discards different identities for himself. To the Phaeaceans he is an unnamed stranger until he names himself; to the Cyclops he names himself “Nobody”; to his family and enemies on Ithaca he comes disguised as on old man.

Although these disguises serve him sell in danger, they turn against him when he can finally reclaim his kingship. He re-establishes his identity on Ithaca in Book Thirteen by symbolically living through all the stages of human growth. At the beginning of the book he is “born” on Ithaca’s shore, confused and disoriented; by the end of the book he has reached “old age” and attained a sense of identity and purpose. The progression occurs in four sequential stages which correspond, with surprising plausibility, to infancy, adolescence, maturity, and old age.

Infancy

Odysseus is ferried to Ithaca on a foreign ship as though he were an unborn infant. Here, the ruler and warrior regresses to being a passive and unconscious cargo inside the womb of the ship. He sleeps soundly on the ship’s afterdeck during the passage, cradled on soft rugs. Thus sheltered, he is undisturbed by the speedy rowing, or by the memory of his past ordeals.

Slumber, soft and deep
like the still sleep of death, weighed on his eyes
as the ship hove seaward. . . . This night, at last,
he slept serene, his long-tired mind at rest.
(Robert Fitzgerald, The Odyssey, XIII.79-81, 92)

Still asleep, he is “born” on Ithaca’s shore:

They hoisted up Odysseus
unruffled on his bed, under his cover,
handing him overside still fast asleep,
to lay him on the sand.
(XIII.117-19)

Upon waking, his symbolic “birth,” Odysseus is disoriented and confused. Everything appears alien and unfamiliar to him. He feels the confusion of a baby when he awakes in an unfamiliar land:

That kingly man, Odysseus
awoke, but could not tell what land it was
after so many years away; moreover,
Pallas Athena, Zeus’s daughter, poured
a grey mist all around him, hiding him
from common sight.

The landscape then looked strange, unearthly strange,
to the Lord Odysseus: paths by hill and shore,
glimpses of harbors, cliffs, and summer trees.
(XIII.197-91, 195-96)

Odysseus is as confused and disoriented by this strangeness as a newborn infant by its surroundings.

Adolescence

These feelings mark the beginning of Odysseus’ “adolescence.” Even after he recovers from the initial shock of awakening, his inadequate memory and Athen’s grey fog keep him from recognizing the island. As a result of this uncertainty, he suffers an acute, quasi-adolescent, crisis of doubt:

He stood up, rubbed his eyes, gazed at his homeland,
and swore, slapping his thighs with both his palms,
then cried aloud:

What am I in for now?
Whose country have I come to this time? Rough
savages and outlaws, are they, or
godfearing people, friendly to castaways?
Where take myself,
with no guide, no directions?
(XIII.197-205)

Since Ithaca is the root of Odysseus’ identity, his home and the source of his lineage, uncertainty about Ithaca is equivalent to uncertainty about Odysseus himself. Alone on a strange shore, he is truly “Nobody”--not a warrior, king, or husband, but only a stranger. Without Ithaca to reaffirm his identity, he is lost psychologically as well as physically.

Even after reassurance, he continues to be unsure, like an adolescent. Athena, his divine guide, appears out of the fog disguised sa a young man and tells him, “This is no nameless country . . . the name of Ithaca has made its way even as far as Troy.” Yet Odysseus reserves joy and thanksgiving until he sees the island’s familiar landmarks for himself. He distrustfully pleads for proof of his location:

I cannot believe that I have come to Ithaca.
It is some other land. You made that speech
only to mock me, and to take me in.
Have I come back in truth to my home island?
(XIII.324-28)

During this uncertainty Odysseus also adopts the classic adolescent behavior of taking on false, protective identities. Instead of identifying himself truthfully to he disguised “stranger,” he presents himself as a marooned “staff officer in the field of Troy,” and constructs an elaborate false history to support this. He maintains the lie even after Athena drops her disguise and pierces his, saying to him affectionately,

You! You chameleon!
Bottomless bag of tricks! Here in your own country
would you not give your strategems a rest
or stop spellbinding for an instant?
(XIII.293-95)

On unknown ground, powerless, confronted by strangers, he retreats into disguise because self-revelation could be dangerous—it could expose him to his enemies. Psychologically, the lie is grounded in uncertainty, because, like an adolescent, he is unsure of his status and safety. He leans on a false identity for temporary protection.

Maturity

Soon, however, this insecurity passes. When Athena reveals Ithaca’s contours by lifting the fog, he recognizes his homeland at last. Secure, he prays joyfully, and in that prayer he identifies himself as a father and warrior for the first time in the book—and as Odysseus.

She had dispelled the mist, so all the island
stood out clearly. Then indeed Odysseus’
heart stirred for joy. He kissed the earth,
and lifting up his hands prayed to the nymphs . . .

“O listen smiling
to my gentle prayers, and we’ll make offering
plentiful as in the old time, granted I
live, granted by son grows tall, by favor
of great Athena, Zeus’s daughter,
who gives the winning fighter his reward!”
(XIII.352-60)

Athena confirms his identity be referring to him as “Son of Laertes and the gods of old, Odysseus, master of land ways and sea ways.” At this point, Odysseus is mature. To complete the symbolic progression, he must now enter old age.

Old Age

When Odysseus reaches psychological maturity, he is ready to reveal himself to his loyal family and servants in order to enlist their aid in retaking his throne. He and Athena settle on the strategy of disguise so that he can first enter his household before his enemies know that he is there. Athena could have picked many disguises, but she chooses to make him an old man.

I shall transform you; not a soul will know you,
the clear skin of your arms and legs shriveled,
your chestnut hair all gone, your body dressed
in sacking a man would gag to see. . . .
(XIII.397-400)

Odysseus passes symbolically from maturity to old age, completing his acquisition of self-knowledge. In that disguise he successfully recaptures his throne and regains full public and private acknowledgement of his identity. In the space of Book Thirteen Odysseus has laid the crucial foundation he needs to establish his identity to the outside world. He had already established it for himself, as he moved from the identities he lost, to the one he found.