Question

What is significant about the way in which Homer ends the Odyssey? What method does he use to end the fighting in Ithaca? Think particularly about the help that Ulysses gets from the gods.

Answer 1

Odysseus or Ulysees was captured by a woman and trapped on an island on his way home from Troy to his hometown  of Ithaca. The god Zeus helps him to escape. Soon, he disguises himself as a beggar to investigate the relation of his wife Penelope to her suitors. He finds out they are vying to take her as their wife (away from Odysseus) so he competes in a competition for her hand with bows and arrows. He wins the contest and then turns on the suitors and kills them, partly with his bow and arrow. After this, peace comes to Ithaca once again and Odysseus get his wife back.

Answer 2

During Ulysses's long journey home after the Trojan War, the gods repeatedly challenge him. From sending storms his way to sending him off course, they turn his journey into an epic adventure. Despite the constant interference of the gods, Ulysses shows his strength, cunning, and worthiness by overcoming all the obstacles in his path to make it home.

Homer ends the Odyssey with the gods intervening yet again. Jove sends Minerva to Laertes’s farm to put an end to the fight between Ulysses and the dead suitors’ angry relatives. Minerva relays a message from Jove: everyone in Ithaca should live in peace now that their rightful king has returned home.

Homer seems to have the gods intervene one last time to reinforce the theme of piety and to show that the will of the gods overrules the concerns of mortals. It also seems like Homer saw this as a fitting ending because the gods finally reward Ulysses with peace and stability in his homeland.