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 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Telemachus Seeks his Father”
Odysseus remains on the island of Calypso for seven years. Calypso treats him well but wants to keep him as her lover, so she does not aid in his Quest for Home, but Odysseus never wavers in his desire to return to Ithaca.
Meanwhile, in Ithaca, everyone begins to think that Odysseus must be dead. His mother has died of grief and his aged father, Laertes, has retired to the country. Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, and Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, wait faithfully for his return, but their house has been beset by a mob of young nobles who want to marry Penelope and seize Odysseus’s possessions and kingdom for themselves. Penelope manages to hold off the unruly suitors with her cunning, telling them that she will choose a husband after she has finished weaving a funerary shroud for Laertes. Every night she unravels her progress in order to make the project last as long as possible.
Odysseus’s patron goddess Athene, the goddess of war and wisdom, convinces the gods that it is time for Odysseus to return home. She goes to Ithaca disguised as Odysseus’s old friend Mentes and speaks with Telemachus, advising him to call an assembly of the Ithacans to complain about the suitors and then to set out in search of news about his father. Telemachus follows this advice, making little progress at the assembly (where he is mocked by the suitors) but managing to arrange for a ship to take him to seek news of his father. The suitors, meanwhile, plot to ambush and kill Telemachus when he returns to Ithaca.
Telemachus first comes to Pylos, ruled by the old king Nestor, who was with Odysseus at Troy. Nestor has not heard any news about Odysseus but sends his son Pisistratus to take Telemachus to Sparta. At Sparta, Telemachus speaks to Menelaus and Helen, who also wandered for years before arriving home from Troy. Menelaus and Helen speak fondly of Odysseus, and Menelaus tells Telemachus of his encounter with the prophetic god Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, who told him, among other things, that Odysseus was stranded on Calypso’s island. Menelaus does not know, however, how to find this island.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Farewell to Calypso”
While Telemachus is at Sparta, the gods send Hermes to tell Calypso that she must release Odysseus. Hermes finds Calypso weaving and gives her the gods’ message. Though sorry to lose Odysseus, Calypso agrees to do as the gods command. She tells Odysseus that he is free to go, but offers to make him immortal if he chooses to remain with her. Odysseus thanks Calypso but reiterates that he still longs to return home. Calypso gives him tools to build a boat, and when everything is ready Odysseus says goodbye to Calypso and sets sail.
Odysseus has 17 days of easy sailing until Poseidon, who is still angry with him for blinding his son, spots him and sends a storm to wreck his boat. Odysseus nearly drowns, but a sea goddess named Ino pities him and gives him her magical veil, telling him that as long as he has the veil tied around his waist he cannot drown. Odysseus floats for two days and nights, and on the third day he washes ashore on a rocky beach. He tosses Ino’s veil back into the sea and finds a sheltered area to sleep.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The King’s Daughter”
While Odysseus sleeps, the daughter of the king of the country, Nausicaa, has a dream in which Athene appears to her and urges her to go to the shore to wash her clothes. When Nausicaa wakes up, she takes her clothes to the shore on a mule cart, followed by her maidens. The girls wash the clothes, bathe, and play on the beach. The noise they make wakes Odysseus, who approaches Nausicaa and asks her for help. Nausicaa promises to help him, telling him that he is on an island called Phaecia and that her father is Alcinous, the king of the island. Odysseus washes himself and Nausicaa gives him clean clothing to wear. Nausicaa tells Odysseus how to find her father’s palace and instructs him to present himself to her mother the queen.
Odysseus comes to the palace, guided by Athene (who disguises herself as a child). The king and queen, Alcinous and Arete, welcome him warmly and give him food and shelter. Odysseus tells them that he got lost on his way home from Troy, but does not reveal his name.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Phaeacian Games”
The next day, Alcinous entertains Odysseus. A blind bard sings of the Trojan War, prompting Odysseus to weep. Afterwards, the young men compete in athletic games, giving Odysseus an opportunity to display his strength. Later, the Phaecian nobles all bring gifts to Odysseus. At dinner, the blind bard sings of Odysseus and the Wooden Horse, and Odysseus weeps again. Alcinous asks him what is wrong, and Odysseus at last reveals his identity. He then tells the story of his wanderings.
At dawn, the Phaeacians take Odysseus and his treasures to a ship. As Odysseus sleeps, he sails back to Ithaca.
Chapters 7-10 Analysis
Sutcliff’s novel aligns Odysseus’s home and family life in Ithaca with civility, nobility, and duty, so the fervency with which Odysseus longs for home reinforces his heroic status in the narrative. In terms of plot, Chapters 7-10 of Sutcliff’s novel correspond to the first part of Homer’s Odyssey in which Telemachus goes out in search of his father Odysseus while Odysseus himself completes the final leg of his journey, from Calypso’s island to the island of the Phaeacians and finally home to Ithaca. But, because Odysseus has been on Calypso’s island “for seven long years” (46) at this point in the narrative, it creates a temporal gap structurally between this section of the plot and the start of Odysseus’s wanderings. During this time, Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, who was still an infant when Odysseus left for Troy, has grown up into a man, Odysseus’s father has grown old and sick, his mother has died of grief, and his wife Penelope is aging. Despite the fact that his world has changed in his absence, Odysseus—no longer so young himself—continues to long for it, and does not give up his heroic quest. Sutcliff highlights Odysseus’s single-minded focus on his quest through his posture and state of mind on Calypso’s island, where he spends his days “sitting on a rock with his head in his hands, and gazing out to sea with eyes bleary and red with weeping” (57). Odysseus does not want to be immortal or to have a goddess for his wife; all he wants is to return to Ithaca, underscoring the novel’s theme of Heroism and the Quest for Home. He tells Calypso:
Well I know that Penelope has not your beauty—what mortal woman could shine like the immortals? But even so, I long to return to her, as you say. And as for the troubles and dangers of the voyage if I should come again to shipwreck, I must it as I have done before, taking my chance with the sea and all its perils (58).
Odysseus thus makes the heroic choice of returning to his home and embracing his duty, even if it means hardship for him.
Sutcliff also characterizes Penelope and Telemachus, Odysseus’s wife and son, as exemplars of duty. Penelope is famous from antiquity for remaining loyal to her husband even after he had been absent for over a decade, but Penelope is a match for Odysseus in more ways than one. Her scheme to hold off her suitors by weaving and reweaving the shroud of her father-in-law, Laertes, demonstrates that she is no less cunning than the famously cunning Odysseus. Telemachus, similarly, shows that he is up to the task of performing his duty as a man when he gathers an assembly of the Ithacan people (an assertion of political authority) and sets out on his own quest to find news of his father.
This section of the novel presents a shift in the narrative setting from the outlandish and fantastical worlds of Odysseus’s travels—worlds full of monsters, enchantresses, and even ghosts—to the civilized world governed by established rules of hospitality and civility. In contrast to the mythical and unpredictable dangers his father encounters, Telemachus’s search for Odysseus is full of assemblies, domestic politics, and communal dining. Telemachus meets Nestor and Menelaus, both of whom fought with his father at Troy and both of whom treat him with kindness and generosity. The hospitable Phaeacians whom Odysseus meets at the end of his journey are the very antithesis of the Cyclops Odysseus encounters at the beginning of his journey. Whereas the Cyclops had scoffed at the gods and refused to provide hospitality, the Phaecians are god-fearing and lavishly hospitable, sending Odysseus home with many gifts—a signal that Odysseus has returned to civilization at last.
As Odysseus’s journey nears its end, Sutcliff emphasizes The Relationship Between Gods and Mortals, making it clear that the whim of the gods—and subsequently The Role of Fate—ultimately determines the outcome of the narrative. It is only after Odysseus’s patron goddess Athene wins over the other gods that Odysseus is able to return home at last. Even after Odysseus leaves Calypso’s island, he is fated to endure more hardships, as Calypso warns him before he goes. Poseidon, still angry at Odysseus for blinding Polyphemus, wrecks Odysseus’s boat as he sails away from Calypso’s island, and when he reaches Ithaca at last Odysseus must face the unruly suitors, who are plotting to murder his son and take over his kingdom. Odysseus’s eagerness to face these challenges—all of which he knows are coming—is a testament to his heroic nature.
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