Examples Of Villains In The Odyssey
The Villain in Hero’s Clothing
Hero’s and villain’s is a theme that spans genres and age groups, from the foundation of a little boys play to the theme of a college level literature class. It is an idea deeply ingrained, good against evil, light against dark. However just like hero’s villains are guided by a set of rules, different from what is considered normal but there all the same. They have their own societies, created with those that follow them and they are strong, presenting a challenge to the hero. So then what defines one as a villain? Homers Odyssey serves as a prime example that heroes can inhabit the roll of a villain. In Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus Odysseus is the hero, Homer has already told the audience that. Indeed
he is fighting for his life against the brutal cyclops, yet Odysseus is the outsider the one who came into Polyphemus’s society and he is the one dismantling the system that binds Polyphemus to his society. In this moment he is embracing the act of destroying what gives Polyphemus his identity, something commonly attributed to villains but Odysseus is a hero, right? Another example can be located in Beowulf in his battle against Grendel and his mother. Beowulf of lauded as the hero by the author when he descends the poisoned lake and confronts and kills Grendel’s mother in her home, a home she shared with her son. Once again we have watched our ‘hero’ step into the society of another only to lay waste to everything the hold dear. A modern example of the ambiguity of what makes a villain can be found in the movie Frozen. Although most of us are ready to let it go, Frozen, in its effort to give young girls a good dose of girl power, does something even more profound. It demonstrates that the villain is not always who the audience has been led to believe it is. Throughout the film Ana is at odds with her sister, the snow queen Elsa. The audience is lead to believe that Elsa is the villain. She is, after all, the one who has doomed the land to an eternal winter and refuses to fix it. Still her sister Ana never give up on her. In the end Elsa is welcomed home to her kingdom and with her sisters aid loses her definition as a villain. What defined Elsa as a villain is what defines all villains, perspective. Villains are villain’s because the author decided they were and as observers the audience often allows the author the authority to define the parameters of the story and decide who is a villain and who is not. However when one approaches a story and does not allow those definitions to be made for them a whole world opens up, one where the sides are not so black and white. Everything becomes a little gray and one can see that sometime the villain is in hero’s clothing.
Hero’s and villain’s is a theme that spans genres and age groups, from the foundation of a little boys play to the theme of a college level literature class. It is an idea deeply ingrained, good against evil, light against dark. However just like hero’s villains are guided by a set of rules, different from what is considered normal but there all the same. They have their own societies, created with those that follow them and they are strong, presenting a challenge to the hero. So then what defines one as a villain? Homers Odyssey serves as a prime example that heroes can inhabit the roll of a villain. In Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus Odysseus is the hero, Homer has already told the audience that. Indeed
he is fighting for his life against the brutal cyclops, yet Odysseus is the outsider the one who came into Polyphemus’s society and he is the one dismantling the system that binds Polyphemus to his society. In this moment he is embracing the act of destroying what gives Polyphemus his identity, something commonly attributed to villains but Odysseus is a hero, right? Another example can be located in Beowulf in his battle against Grendel and his mother. Beowulf of lauded as the hero by the author when he descends the poisoned lake and confronts and kills Grendel’s mother in her home, a home she shared with her son. Once again we have watched our ‘hero’ step into the society of another only to lay waste to everything the hold dear. A modern example of the ambiguity of what makes a villain can be found in the movie Frozen. Although most of us are ready to let it go, Frozen, in its effort to give young girls a good dose of girl power, does something even more profound. It demonstrates that the villain is not always who the audience has been led to believe it is. Throughout the film Ana is at odds with her sister, the snow queen Elsa. The audience is lead to believe that Elsa is the villain. She is, after all, the one who has doomed the land to an eternal winter and refuses to fix it. Still her sister Ana never give up on her. In the end Elsa is welcomed home to her kingdom and with her sisters aid loses her definition as a villain. What defined Elsa as a villain is what defines all villains, perspective. Villains are villain’s because the author decided they were and as observers the audience often allows the author the authority to define the parameters of the story and decide who is a villain and who is not. However when one approaches a story and does not allow those definitions to be made for them a whole world opens up, one where the sides are not so black and white. Everything becomes a little gray and one can see that sometime the villain is in hero’s clothing.