An obvious question in Book 10 of The Odyssey is: when is it right to deny someone who is asking for help?
If you have been following along with my posts, we have talked about how if you look for one, there is a moral to every story and some stories have more than one deeper meaning. Depending on who you are, you might find a different moral than someone else, you see what you need to see when you look close enough. Today let's look at a smaller portion of The Odyssey to uncover another meaning hidden in a seemingly insignificant part of the story.
In book 10, “Aeolus, the Lastrygonians, and Circe,” the first portion of the chapter obviously focuses on Aeolus. During this portion of the story, Aeolus helps Odysseus get off this small island he and his crew are trapped on. However, the gods use the elements to push them back to the island, and this time the people refuse to help them. They claim it is because Odysseus is clearly an awful man if the gods hate him so.
There is the obvious question, were these people right to shun Odysseus? Well, to the observer the immediate answer would be no, the main protagonist was a good guy in need, right? But you must think from the characters’ perspective. These people saw how much their higher beings hated Odysseus and his crew, they must be evil destined to a terrible fate. However, these gods are nothing like some of the modern gods worshiped. These gods are petty, cruel, and use mortals as puppets for their own amusement. Did the islanders truly believe Odysseus was a bad person, were their resources too exhausted to help these people, did the islanders believe they were enabling people who were clearly dependent, or were Aeolus and his people simply too scared they would get in trouble with the gods?
This plays to our own morals, whether religious or not. It is like the angel and demon on your shoulders. Sometimes you have to question which one is the demon. In this case, Aeolus had to consider, should he risk the lives of his people by angering the gods and helping the strangers? Were the gods just in why they hated Odysseus so? Would helping these people truly be the right thing to do?
We all have that complex from time to time, we first must figure out which of our options is right if any of them are truly right. Then we must determine if the morally right thing to do is what we should do for both our own benefit, and the people around us.
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