While reading the Homer’s Odyssey, I was struck by the lack of humor. Maybe the ancient
Greeks didn’t make jokes? But no, I was confident that Greece was, in fact, one
of the birth places of comedy (I may be wrong though). So, what is up with
Homer? It would appear the Homer simply dislike humor. That lack of comicality
was made even more obvious when I started to compare The Odyssey to the Conan Brothers’ screenplay adaptation, O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? This
adaptation is exceedingly funny, to the point where nearly everything is a
joke, though not in a bad way. When I looked back, however, I realized that
there were instances where I did laugh at the Odyssey, or at least I would have
if the events were intended to be comical. In fact, I think the Odyssey has a
great potential for comedy. When Odysseus is stuck on Calypso’s island, every
day he sits on the sands, crying for his home and his family. This image
invokes sympathy, but that sympathy is offset by the irony in how Odysseus then
proceeds to sleep with Calypso every night. Even more ironic is the fact that a
major part of Penelope’s existence in the novel her fidelity to Odysseus, who
sleeps with nearly every woman he meets. Later, when Odysseus meets Nausicaä,
there is an interesting scene in which Odysseus contemplates hugging her knees
and asking for hospitality, as he has done with many of other people he has
met. However, the issue is that Odysseus is stark naked, and does not want to
frighten Nausicaä by touching her. We see this (alleged to be) great leader
stuck in a supremely awkward situation, and that disparity might well be
thought of as humorous. Much later, when Odysseus finally makes it to Ithaca, Athena
disguises the beach from him. Instantly he curses those who brought him there,
assuming that they dropped him on some strange land and stole all the treasure
that they gave him in the first place. This is, however, not the case. The
reaction to arriving at the place he has been striving toward for the last ten
years or more years is completely the opposite of what we would expect, creating
a potentially humorous scene. What do you guys think? Is there unintentional
humor there, or am I looking too deep into it? Are there some other scenes that
you though could be funny? I would be happy for any comments.
I think a lot of the comedy in the movie comes from its tone. It goes to great lengths in each scene to not be silly -- on the most basic level the setting lends characters a thick accent which makes it harder, for me at least, to take them as seriously as I might otherwise do. The problem, then, for the Odyssey is that Homer tells it in a very serious tone. If only it were presented in the way it is discussed in class, with layer after layer of sarcasm and irony, it could, I agree, be comedic gold.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Only after after-the-fact examination of the reading could the potential humor be seen.
DeleteI think most of the humor from The Odyssey comes from laughing at Odysseus' hypocrisy. Since the Odyssey isn't the epicenter of our cultures and the gods aren't gods that we actually believe in, we're allowed to critically analyze Odysseus and the gods. However, centuries ago in ancient Greece, Odysseus and the gods were most likely revered and their flaws weren't pointed out. One part that made me laugh was that Odysseus spent a whole year sleeping with Circe, yet he lashed out at the suitors for trying to court Penelope even though everyone thought he was dead. Thus, I think the humor is unintentional and the society that they lived in just favored aristocrats and the gods, no matter their actions.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a lot of humor that comes from Odysseus' hypocrisy, but I also think that another big part of is the humor that comes from absurd situations. For instance when Odysseus sees his son for the first time and his son refuses to believe that he is seeing his father. There are many more parts like this.
DeleteI like your thinking about these scenes in the Odyssey as potentially humorous. I agree with Nora in that a lot of the comedy potentially stems from irony and Odysseus' hypocrisy. Personally, I didn't really find the parts where he cries about missing his wife and then sleeps with Calypso very funny, because his hypocrisy made me a little mad. But I guess if you weren't me, it could potentially be kinda funny. One scene that I did find funny was the scene with Nausicaa, where Odysseus doesn't want to hug her knees because he's naked and she might be scared off. That's just really awkward, and we don't normally see Odysseus in awkward situations like this so it made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Odysseus' hypocrisy also makes me mad too. I just thought that it was slightly funny to see the 'great warrior' Odysseus for the first time when he is crying on a beach. It seemed slightly incongruous to what I thought would be the case.
DeleteI agree that the Odyssey doesn't seem funny initially, especially just from reading the prose. I think that this has to do with the language, being translated from Greek. Translations of any kind loose an element of what the original language intended, from how it was supposed to be read to the way the words flowed. I think though, just from the imagery of a scene as a whole, some parts are pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It is important to think about the fact that what we are reading is a translation of a work, not the original, so we can't really know if the supposed humor was intended by Homer. However, from this translation it seems that none of it was.
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