44 pages • 1 hour read
Rosemary SutcliffThe Wanderings of Odysseus
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Return to Ithaca”
Odysseus wakes up to find himself on a misty beach, surrounded by the gifts he received from the Phaeacians. He is unsure where he is until Athene, disguised as a young man, tells him that he has at last reached Ithaca. Odysseus doesn’t fully trust this information until Athene reveals her true identity and promises to help him deal with the suitors who are trying to steal his wife and kingdom. Odysseus cannot enter Ithaca openly, as doing so will put him in danger from the suitors, so Athene disguises him as an old beggar. She tells him to stay with the swineherd Eumaeus, who is still loyal to him. Odysseus does not reveal his identity to Eumaeus but assures him that Odysseus is alive and will soon return to Ithaca.
Meanwhile, Athene visits Telemachus in Sparta and tells him that it is time for him to return home. She warns him of the suitors’ ambush and tells him to return by a different route to avoid them. On Ithaca, Telemachus visits Eumaeus’s farm and Odysseus sees his son for the first time in nearly 20 years. When they are alone together, Odysseus reveals his identity to Telemachus. After a joyful reunion, the two of them plot to kill the suitors.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Beggar in the Corner”
The next morning, Telemachus returns to the palace. A little later, the disguised Odysseus, accompanied by Eumaeus, comes to town, too. He meets the goatherd Melanthius, who has been helping the suitors and who mocks Odysseus and Eumaeus when he sees them. Nobody recognizes Odysseus except for his old hunting dog, Argus, who dies as soon as he sees the master whose return he has been awaiting for so long.
Odysseus sits at the threshold of his palace, where the suitors—especially Antinous and Eurymachus—mistreat him. Another beggar, Irus, picks a fight with Odysseus, but Odysseus beats him easily.
When night falls and the suitors leave the hall, Odysseus and Telemachus begin to put their plan in motion, hiding all the weapons in the hall so the suitors will not be able to get to them. Penelope comes to visit the “beggar.” Odysseus does not tell her his true identity but again confirms that Odysseus is alive and on his way home. Penelope does not believe him, but to thank him for the news she tells her old enslaved person Eurycleia to wash his feet. While performing this task, Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus by a scar on his thigh. Odysseus swears her to secrecy, telling her that he is going to get rid of the suitors. Penelope returns and speaks to Odysseus some more, and he suggests that she use a contest of some kind to decide between the suitors.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Archery Contest”
The next day, Odysseus meets another loyal servant, the cowherd Philoetius. A strange mood comes over the suitors, and a seer interprets this as a sign that they are about to die. Eventually Penelope enters. Following Odysseus’s advice from the night before, she has come up with a contest to decide between them, saying that she will marry whichever of them can string Odysseus’s old bow and shoot an arrow through 12 ax rings.
While the suitors take turns with the bow, Odysseus reveals his identity to the loyal Eumaeus and Philoetius. They promise to help him with his plan to kill the suitors: Eumaeus will come to the hall with Odysseus while Philoetius will lock the doors from outside so that the suitors cannot escape. Odysseus returns to the hall and asks to try the test with the bow as well, as none of the suitors have succeeded. Telemachus allows this, though the suitors and his mother protest; Telemachus sends Penelope away from the hall. Odysseus easily strings the bow and shoots the arrow through the 12 ax rings.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Slaying of the Suitors”
Still holding the bow, Odysseus shoots the suitor Antinous in the throat and reveals that he is Odysseus. With the help of Telemachus and Eumaeus (and Athene), he begins killing the rest of the suitors, who are trapped in the hall with the doors locked. Though Melanthius smuggles weapons to the suitors during the battle, Odysseus finally kills all the suitors, sparing only the herald Medon and the minstrel Phemius, who were forced to serve the suitors. Odysseus executes Melanthius. He then orders the hall to be cleaned.
Eurycleia goes to Penelope, who is sleeping in her room, to report that Odysseus has returned and has slain the suitors. Penelope does not dare believe this. She decides to test Odysseus, ordering Eurycleia to bring out the bed from their bedchamber so that Odysseus can sleep in it in the hall. When Odysseus says that this is impossible, as he himself built the bed from the trunk of a live olive tree, Penelope knows that he is who he claims to be, and she gives him a joyous welcome.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Peace in the Islands”
The next morning, Odysseus goes to the farm of his father, Laertes. He initially conceals his identity from him but finally reveals that he is Odysseus, home at last. Their reunion is interrupted by news that the relatives of the suitors are coming to attack Odysseus. Eupeithes, the father of Antinous, declares that they must avenge the slain suitors. Odysseus and his supporters go out to meet the attackers, and Laertes, given strength by Athene, kills Eupeithes with a spear throw. Athene then shows herself to prevent further bloodshed and makes peace.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
The last part of the story takes place on Ithaca, Odysseus’s home, but even after he arrives safely on his own island kingdom, Odysseus’s homecoming is not yet complete. Tiresias of Thebes’s warning that Odysseus will come to Ithaca to find his house overrun by violent suitors (which Athene confirms upon his arrival) reinforces the narrative of The Role of Fate as Odysseus hatches an elaborate plot to deal with the final obstacle in his quest, enlisting as his allies the goddess Athene and his son Telemachus as well as several loyal servants. In slaying the suitors, Odysseus stakes claim to the home he has worked so hard to reach and re-establishes order amidst chaos, civility amidst disrespect. As Odysseus tells the suitors:
You thought that I should not return from Troy, and so you wasted my goods and tried to force yourselves upon my wife! All things seemed to go your way and you had no decent fear of the gods, but now the time of reckoning, the death-time, has come upon you all! (102).
The suitors, who mistreat guests, steal other men’s property, and disrespect the gods, represent the dangers posed to civilization by those who flout social norms and justice. In this way, they mirror the many of the other savage monsters that Odysseus encountered during his journey. Sutcliff represents Odysseus’s killing of the suitors, for all its brutality, as an act of justice, necessary to preserve law and order in his kingdom of Ithaca.
Penelope’s ability to hold off the suitors that plague her household during Odysseus’s absence represents an anomaly in the world of Homer’s epic and defines the novel’s discussion of the role of women in ancient Greek society. In the world of Odysseus, women are largely cloistered from the world of men. It is men who fight, trade, and hunt, while women stay at home performing domestic tasks. In this world, men also hold authority over women. Part of the reason Penelope is pressured to choose a new husband in Odysseus’s absence is because ancient Greek women were not seen as capable or autonomous caretakers of themselves and their homes without the presence or authority of a male guardian. In ancient Greece, women would pass from the home of their father to the home of their husband, and if their husband died they would either return to their father or remarry. Women were consistently denied independence and personal autonomy in ancient Greek culture. Even the young Telemachus, represented in the story as being on the cusp of manhood, holds authority over his mother, and in one scene he commands her to leave the management of the household affairs to him and to weave in her rooms “for that [is] woman’s work” (99). Penelope’s ability to assert her own will over her circumstances—albeit via a performance of archetypal feminine piety and submission—positions her as a different kind of hero alongside her husband, and highlights the misogyny inherent in the world of the story. While Odysseus demonstrates his heroism battling mythical, “uncivilized” monsters, Penelope’s is exemplified in her battle against the bigotry and strictures of the “civilized” world.
The pervasive ancient Greek attitude toward women also contains a double standard strongly marked in the story of Odysseus: Namely, wives in ancient Greece were expected to go to great lengths to be faithful to their husbands, while husbands were free to take extramarital lovers as they chose without damage to their reputations or status as heroes. Penelope puts off her suitors even when she and everybody else in Ithaca is convinced that Odysseus is dead, while Odysseus does not hesitate to take lovers (such as Calypso) on his journey home. Penelope’s clever and cunning means of securing her autonomy in Odysseus’s absence notwithstanding, the narrative still grounds her virtue and heroism primarily in her fidelity, whereas Odysseus’s marital infidelity has no bearing on his Heroism and the Quest for Home.
The Relationship Between Gods and Mortals defines a well-ordered society in Sutcliff’s novel. Athene’s special relationship to Odysseus becomes much more central in the final part of the story. When Odysseus confronts Athene, asking her why she did not help him during the long years of his wandering, Athene responds by saying, “How could I go against my father’s brother Poseidon, Lord of the Sea, whose wrath was hot against you for the blinding of his son?” (78). In the world of Odysseus, the relationship between god and god takes precedence over the relationship between a god and a mortal. Athene must respect these divine politics by not crossing her powerful uncle Poseidon despite her love for Odysseus. But, even the whims of gods cannot stand against The Role of Fate , a force to which men as well as gods are subject, in Odysseus’s journey. Odysseus, despite Poseidon’s anger, is fated to reach home—although (as he explains to Penelope) he must make another journey, a land odyssey, to placate Poseidon before he settles down for good.
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