The Odyssey (the subject of a new Christopher Nolan film released on the same day as this episode), is the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer and one of the foundational works of Western literature. This week, Jungian analyst Robert Sheavly joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart for a Jungian exploration of The Odyssey.
“Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all” (C.P. Cavafy)
For Jungians, the Odyssey models a process of returning to the Self, offering a psychological map for the second half of life and the path to individuation. It asks us to engage with the profound question, what does it mean to come home to ourselves?
Odysseus, our wily trickster hero, encounters gods, enchantresses and shadowy monsters with a relatable mix of hubris and cunning. We can view these figures as aspects of psyche, with the story showing us how we might create a relationship with something larger. As we grow and mature into midlife, we move away from an ego-centered existence, and begin a new confrontation with the Self.
By the journey’s end, we may wind up dressed in rags and shorn of our heroic trappings, but what remains is something deeper: a more authentic relationship to the soul, and a growing readiness for life’s final adventure, our encounter with mortality.
The Story of The Odyssey
The Odyssey begins after the Greek victory in the Trojan Wars, when Odysseus and his army embark on the journey home to Ithaca. The journey is the subject of the epic, and ends up taking ten years and encompassing encounters with gods, monsters, romance, tragedy and disaster. These encounters provide some of the most seminal moments in Western literature, including the encounter with the Sirens and the escape from the island of the lotus-eaters.
The Odyssey and Midlife
The other great epic poem underpinning Western civilization is the Iliad, which is set in the Trojan War, and full of the exploits of war. In comparison, The Odyssey is a kind of “anti-quest” – it is about striving to reach home, not going out into the world to triumph.
This can be mapped onto the first and second halves of life. According to Jung, the first half of life is about getting established in the world, with a career, partner and family. In the second half, we turn the corner and head back home, engaging in a deeper quest of self-understanding.
This midlife reorientation can involve loss and letting go. In the end, Odysseus loses just about all he has, arriving home dressed as a beggar. He is stripped of the trappings of ego, freed from his complexes. He reaches home without golden armor or ships, dressed in rags, and presenting as his essential self. Returning home will require from us a form of surrender.
Jung himself experienced this. In his late thirties he experienced a devastating break with his mentor, Sigmund Freud, and was thrown into a deep confrontation with the unconscious. As a prestigious, high-achieving psychiatrist, he found himself playing with toys on the shores of Lake Zurich, trying to prevent himself from completely losing his mind. Jung, like so many of us, had to reckon with how essentially unimportant the achievements of the first half of life now felt to him.
Hubris in The Odyssey
The Odyssey depicts a heroic journey, but it can also be read as a correction of the heroic attitude. In encounter after encounter, Odysseus’ hubris leads him into trouble.
The Greeks in the story, filled with pride and glory in their victory over the Trojans, have failed to make the proper sacrifices and perform the correct gratitude rituals to the gods. They have taken the gods too lightly, the ultimate sin in ancient mythology. The story asks, what do we owe the gods, and what happens if we don’t pay that debt?
The Adventure Before the Return
The Odyssey would carry little meaning without the Iliad – the epic story of the ten-year Trojan war. The prerequisite for coming home to ourselves is to launch ourselves vigorously into the world in the first half of life. Travelling, experimenting, or testing ourselves out in the big city might all be aspects of the adventure that helps us reach the point where we can define what home means, and begin to crave a return.
Odysseus the Flawed Hero
Odysseus has pulled in readers and listeners for thousands of years because he is an intriguingly flawed hero. Whilst he is brave and strong, he also has a vigorous trickster energy and a relatable capacity for hubris. Amongst his peers, he is often described as wily and is seen to act very much in service to himself. He triumphs in the end, but this is also ambivalent – the suffering he experiences on his journey imposes a very high cost.
Odysseus and Polyphemus
One of the most memorable encounters in The Odyssey is in the cave of the one-eyed cyclops, Polyphemus. Odysseus illustrates his capacity for cleverness and strategy with a series of tricks, including giving his name as “Nobody”, and escaping the cave tied under the bellies of sheep. Leaving the island, Odysseus shouts his true name, an act of hubris that leads to trouble later in the story, as it turns out that Polyphemus is the son of the god Poseidon, whose enmity causes Odysseus repeated crises.
With his one huge eye and giant body, the cyclops can be understood to represent a kind of primitive affect. Odysseus is the bearer of consciousness, fighting against these regressive forces. In shouting his victory over them to the rooftops, however, he fails to give those forces their due, to recognize their true power.
The assertion of ego that allows Odysseus to defeat Polyphemus is also his undoing – he cannot resist proclaiming his victory to his opponent. When we’re out in the world accomplishing things, perhaps even bragging about them, we’re storing up a confrontation with the fact that there is something larger than ego at work.
Beginning an analytic process can be about starting that confrontation, and eventually arriving at an understanding of who we really are, rather than the version of ourselves we’ve comfortably lived with but which no longer feels enough.
The Lotus Eaters
“They started at once, and went about among the Lotus Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus Eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches.”
In Book 9 of The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men arrive on the island of the Lotus Eaters. The crew eat the addictive native lotus plant, and lose all desire to return home. Odysseus drags his sailors back to their ships and ties them down, preventing them escaping back to the island.
The Lotus Eaters are one of literature’s most potent images of addiction, showing us the temptation of oblivion and its capacity to disrupt or even end our journey home to the self. Rather than doing the work of consciousness, we can find something external that offers detachment or bliss. This external means could involve substance misuse, but we could also see it as doom scrolling on our phones or bingeing television series rather than engaging with the serious work of our lives.
We may end up anesthetized, without even the desire for connection with the Self. The link to the meaning and obligation of the past, and to the hope and growth of the future, becomes severed.
The rescue of the sailors happens through Odysseus’ willingness to intervene with strength and direction. In a state of addiction, we may need someone to step in and help us with a vigorous act of control – throwing away the bottles, locking the phone in a cupboard, or signing us up for an appointment and driving us all the way to the front door.
The Sirens: Complexes and Addiction
In Book 12 of The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men encounter the Sirens, monstrous bird-women whose hypnotic song entrances sailors and leads them to their deaths. Circe forewarns Odysseus of this danger, and he directs his men to plug their ears using beeswax. Odysseus is unwilling to miss the chance to hear their song, however, and has his men tie him to the ship’s mast, with a strict order to ignore any pleas for release.
In this instance, in psychological terms, we can view Odysseus as the individual who has become conscious of his complexes, and acts with the understanding that they will be constellated whatever he does, and puts in place a solid plan.
In life, perhaps, we might understand that our teenager is likely to sail through the door and say something that will plunge us into a heady state of outrage, but if this has happened enough times, and we understand our own reaction, we can have a reliable set of strategies at hand to manage the situation better.
The sirens – half women, half bird, living on a desolate, craggy island, but gifted with mesmerizing voices – are a potent representation of addiction. We can see the ugliness and destructiveness of our addiction, but it hooks us into a place of self-abandonment nonetheless
Odysseus’ action in strapping himself to the mast also reminds us of the wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous, which advises addicts not to go to the bar with friends who drink – in effect, to stay away from the sirens’ song.
Penelope in The Odyssey
Whilst Odysseus ventures ten years out into the world and then spends ten returning, his wife Penelope loyally awaits him in Ithaca. She also faces threats and challenges, and is able to resist a hundred suitors vying for her hand (believing her to be a widow) by stating that she cannot remarry until she has woven a burial shroud for Laertes, her father-in-law. Penelope then weaves the shroud every day, and unravels it at night.
She is left in a kind of stasis, well represented by this weaving task. She is uncertain whether Odysseus is alive or dead, so she cannot grieve him. The culture prevents her finding love elsewhere (as Odysseus certainly does). She remains at home, doing the repetitive and exhausting labor required to keep things going, familiar to women throughout time – again, a role beautifully captured in the endless weaving of the shroud.
Odysseus the Thrillseeker
Much of Odysseus’ allure lies in his lust for life and his hunger to have all the experiences that are on offer. He finds a safe way to hear the Sirens’ song rather than stuffing his own ears as he does for his men. In the words of the poet C.P Cavafy, he will discover “as many sensual perfumes” as life has to offer him. He embodies the adventurer who is also gifted with a strong instinct for self-preservation.
Argos the Faithful Dog
When Odysseus finally makes it to Ithaca, in the disguise of a beggar, the only one to recognize him is Argos, the faithful hunting dog who has awaited his master’s return for twenty years. Argos wags his tail, licks his master and then lays down to die. In the touching scene of the humble, faithful dog’s welcome and recognition, we see Odysseus reunited with his instinctual self.
Odysseus the Old Man
“Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods” (“Ulysses”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson).
Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is one of the most famous Odyssey-inspired works of literature. In it, he has Odysseus preparing to take to the seas for one final adventure, which it is clear will end with his death. Many older people will relate to this desire to seize the time left and make the most of it, rather than sinking into quiet domesticated routines.
The poem is also profound as an invitation to consider our attitude to our own death. Can we face our final coming home? Can we consider what our end will be like?
Our Guest – Robert Sheavly
Robert Sheavly, LICSW, DCSW is a Jungian Analyst located in Washington, D.C., a senior training analyst with the Philadelphia Jung Institute and the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (I-RSJA) and the Director of the Central Washington Psychotherapy Associates. He is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and holds a diploma in Analytical Psychology from the I-RSJA. Bob is Treasurer of the Philadelphia Association and the Jungian Analysts and of the Jungian Analysts of Washington Association (JAWA) and the former Director of Training for the Philadelphia Jung Institute. He is a former church organist and an avid choral singer performing regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the author of Ensouling AIDS: The Archetypal Dimension of the LGBT Choral Experience.
Here’s the Dream We Analyze
I was in a market. It was cold, dreary and uninviting. There was a baby octopus presented to me (not sure how it was, but it was in my possession). The baby octopus was moving, but only just, it was barely alive. She had tomato sauce splattered on her (I feel she was female). Someone, I believe female, took the octopus and prepared her in baby clothing and revitalized her to life, and presented her back to me, fully clothed and now the size of a baby. I held her in my arms and carried her with me everywhere.
Resources Discussed in this Episode
- “Ithaka”, a poem by C.P. Cavafy – read it on the Poetry Foundation website.
- Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.
- “Ulysses”, a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – read it on the Poetry Foundation website.
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