Theme Of Hunger In The Odyssey

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The stomach craves and the soul desires. Since the very beginning, humans have been creatures of yearning and hunger. In The Odyssey character’s appetite for more than what they had was not helpful to them. Their greed, lust and literal hunger counteracted their wishes and delayed their arrival from Ithaca.

One example in The Odyssey of when the men's desire for riches went against their deepest request was in chapter 10, “The Bewitching of Aeaea”. In this chapter King Aeolus shows great hospitality to Odysseus and his men: he provides them with supplies, food, and a room to stay in. King Aeolus once again is very generous to them when they decide to leave and provides them with an efficient way to get home, a bag full of winds. The bag of …show more content…
The suitors were sons of wealthy men with lands of their own. They want to take advantage that Penelope is the only adult home, with her fragile son Telemachus. Despite it hurting him to see the suitors trying to court his mother, he is too fragile to be of much help. He believes that almost everyone is trying to marry Penelope, “Listen. All the nobles who rule the islands round about, Dulichion, and Same, and wooded Zacynthus too, and all who Lord it rocky Ithaca as well—down to the last Man they Court my mother, they lay waste my house!”(Odyssey 85). Another example of lust in the Odyssey is a number of Women that Odysseus sleeps with meanwhile he is away from his wife that has been loyal for him for many years. Through the poem, Odysseus has slept with: Calypso, Circe, and Helen. He gave into her seductiveness and stayed on her island for seven long years not realizing that he could have been using that time to get to Ithaca. When Odysseus is about to leave the island to finally set sail for home, they still find a way to be lustful in a moment that is about Odysseus family,“ even as he spoke the sunset and the darkness swept the earth. And now, withdrawing into the conversions deep recesses long in each other's arms they lost themselves in love.”( Odyssey 159). This is very selfish on both of their parts, Odysseus for not thinking of his wife and Calypso for not thinking about Penelope and how she might be hurt if she found out about this. Being alone without his wife must have been hard on Odysseus, so much that his lust delayed their
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