The Importance Of A Journey In The Odyssey

The Importance of Experiencing and Gaining From a Journey
Ernest Hemingway once said, “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” People go on journeys for various reasons. On journeys of transformation voyagers tend to travel to reach a goal, but it is common for someone to travel home. There are two types of journeys, physical and emotional. Often times, an expedition is both emotional and physical. For example, in many tales the protagonist leaves home to travel somewhere new, but the author may also focus on their transformation along the way. Although the destination is important, the journey is far more significant because an expedition emphasizes personal strengths, changes how someone
On journeys and throughout life everyone is tested and tried, fictitious characters are no different. On his journey, Odysseus was faced with many unexpected challenges. For instance when escaping the cyclops the hero “took the wooliest ram… and hung [himself] under his kinky belly” demonstrating his cunning (Homer, 1989, p. 571). One of Odysseus’ strongest traits was his wits, and his odyssey forced him to use that skill. His voyage extracted his assets. In “Courage”, a poem about the journey of life, courage is compared is compared to a fire. The poet emphasizes that everyone has courage and it starts as a “small coal” (Sexton, 1975 ,p. 20). The author continued to state that as time went on and challenges were endured the fire grew. Life is the ultimate journey in which everyone partakes. So, just like a physical journey, life brings out someone’s strengths. The stress and struggles of these journey promoted the narrators’ strong points and that was for more important than where they were going. Furthermore, the journey promoted a new outlook on
In the short story “The Ugly Duckling” as well as “The Narrow Road of the Interior” this was proven to be true. Within the “The Ugly Duckling” the protagonist, a duckling estranged from his family for his looks, faced many gruesome near death experiences. Throughout his life the ugly duckling thought negatively about himself because of his looks. But after going through his transformation he was grateful he “suffered sorrow and trouble” because when it was finished it had helped him appreciate “all the pleasure and happiness around him” (Andersen, 1843). The duckling’s ordeal forced him to see that looks do not matter, and as a result he lived much differently. Consequently, the alteration it had on how the duckling lived his life was of greater significance than where he ended up. In contrast, Matsuo (Date) of “The Narrow Road of the Interior” learned after wandering, that life is more than settling. The speaker concluded that “travel is life, travel is home”. As a result, he stopped trying to settle. Instead, he lived more purposefully. The journey he took impacted how he experienced his life; thus, making the destination less important. While the journey may change how someone sees their life it also has the power to teach