The Odyssey Across Oceans

Homer’s Odyssey is widely considered to be in the canon of Western epic but its influence is global. The work chronicles the tale of the warrior-king Odysseus’ return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War (detailed in Homer’s previous epic, the Iliad). The Odyssey’s stories of temptation, pride, trickery and nostos (the idea of a homecoming or return in Ancient Greek) have been adapted into forms and genres beyond traditional epic, such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and even an episode of The Simpsons. Although these may be some of the more familiar adaptations discussed in high school classrooms, the Odyssey's influence reaches beyond the West.

OMEROS (1990)

One of the most lauded adaptations is Caribbean author Derek Walcott’s epic, Omeros (1990). Instead of following ancient Mediterranaean warriors trying to return home, Omeros follows St. Lucian fisherman with Homeric attributes and French Creole versions of Homer’s character names like ‘Achille’ and ‘Hector’ (Davis, 2007, p. 404).Walcott’s adaptation still works with influential scenes, such as Homer’s “nobody” trope. In Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus meets Polyphemus, an apparently brutal and brutish Cyclops. When Polyphemus demands Odysseus’ identity as he cannot see him, he responds that he is “no-one” or “Noman”, leading to an escape based on wordplay.

Walcott’s adaptation still works with influential scenes, such as Homer’s “nobody” trope. In Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus meets Polyphemus, an apparently brutal and brutish Cyclops. When Polyphemus demands Odysseus’ identity as he cannot see him, he responds that he is “no-one” or “Noman”, leading to an escape based on wordplay.

In Omeros, Walcott mirrors this interaction in a familial encounter framed in postcolonial identity. The Caribbean fisherman, Achille, travels back in time and place to Africa, where he meets his father, Afolabe. Instead of a joyous family reunion, Achille is greeted by a father who does not recognize him.

Walcott employs this confusion of identity to comment on the implications of colonization and creation of the African Diaspora where “the enforced displacement of slavery is thus patterned after Odysseus’ exile...like Odysseus, each African was compelled to become ‘a nation/in himself, without mother, father, brother’” (Hall, 2008, p. 170-171; Walcott, 1990, p. 150).

Home to Ithaca, 1977. Collage of various papers with foil, paint, and graphite on fiberboard, 14 x 22¾ inches. From Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey

ROMARE BEARDEN: A BLACK ODYSSEY (2007)

Artist Romare Bearden also “drew on the artistic heritage of both Europe and Africa to suggest the transcultural resonances of the Odysseus story and the searing impact of the destruction of Troy.” (Hardwick, 2007, p. 67)

Like Walcott, Romare Bearden also engages with the “nobody” trope but uses a racial rather than postcolonial lens. As seen in the artist monograph, Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey (2007), Bearden recreates scenes from Homer’s Odyssey through Matissean collage, where all characters have dark skin. Bearden engages with the classical tradition by exposing “the fundamental irrelevance of racial identities (of which skin pigment is but one of the full panoply of superficial elements) for a deeper understanding of what it means to be a human being [in the ancient world]." (Davis, 2007, p. 412)

That is not to say that Bearden does not see the implications of race and color in the modern world. In his rendition of Odyssseus’ homecoming, the hero returns, proud at the prow of his ship, but in the absence of people in his city and on his ship. In Homer’s work, when Odysseus returns to his homeland of Ithaca, he is sleeping through the climactic landing. However, in Bearden's visual retelling, he conveys the return with both pride and a sense of desolation. Bearden argues that he did not want to recreate a scene where the hero is characterized as “foolish and lazy” since there was a need in the 1970s for “artistic images of black heroes as role models to fight off anti-black stereotypes” (O’Meally, 2007, p. 92).

Book cover of Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016)

NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS (2016)

Beyond the African Diaspora, Ocean Vuong’s work of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016), discusses family, violence, sexuality and the consequences of war in the context of his Vietnamese-American identity. Homer’s universal concepts are again touched upon, but specifically in three of Vuong’s poems entitled, "Odysseus Redux", "Trojan" and "Telemachus".

Like Walcott, Vuong uses the Odysseus story to discuss fatherhood, identity and absence. Vuong’s poem, “Telemachus”, is named after Odysseus’ son, who has been acting as the head of the household in his father’s absence. In the poem, Vuong alludes to a vague, blurry father-son reunion taking place on a sea shore. Much like Walcott’s adaptation of a father and son reunion, Vuong’s characters act like strangers, “blurring the expected dynamic between father and son, and both unknowing of the role either one must fit” (Soto, n.d.).

“he could be anyone’s father, found

the way a green bottle might appear

at a boy’s feet containing a year

he has never touched” (Vuong, 2016, p. 7).

Unfortunately, a happy father-son reunion does not take place but rather abandonment and its aftermath take up more space. Vuong describes a scene where the narrator’s inquiry unto the identity of his father is met with silence:

“But the answer never comes. The answer

is the bullet hole in his back, brimming

with seawater” (Vuong, 2016, p. 7).