Ulysses: The King Of Ithaca

Ulysses
Everyone wants a safe, peaceful and comfortable life rather than suffering difficuties, torture or disasters. However, people cannot imagine the joy after you get through the hardnesses. It is this that makes people stronger. Ulysses is the Greek king of Ithaca. He is well known in Greek mythology for his intelligence, such as in the campaige Trojan war. The famous war tactic he used is called the Trojan Horse, where it allowed some of his soldier to sneak into the city of Troy without notice. After the ten year war, he spent another ten years traveling back to his kingdom of Ithaca. Now, the poem “Ulysses” takes place after Ulysses has returned to Ithaca, and it shows hisstrong urge to journey again. On the surface, “Ulysses” is showng
that Ulysses is strong of will since he wants to continue travelling and exploring new lands. But the case is that he has no feelings for his wife and son anymore. Significant time and distance apart does not make the heart go fonder; instead, it will change the perspective of the people involved and how they view their life.
It is the king’s responsiblity to govern his own kingdom. However, the twenty years worth of time spent away from his wife, son and Ithaca has changed him. He is better acquainted with his men and mariners than his wife and son. He is more accustomed to an ever changing enviroment than the nonchanginging Ithaca environment. His war battles and combined with his long journey home also caused him unable to remain still, as if he must physically do something in order to remain relaxed. Thus, Ulysses is quickly bored in his returned position as the king of Ithaca. Line one to five shows that he feels nothing to gain by being a king that make laws to the people who do not even know him, due to him being away for twenty years. This is Ulysses rationizing why he should not remain as the king, when the true reason is that he still wants to travel, to live the way he wanted for the rest of his life.
Some people might think Ulysses is a restless or even a irresponsible person that does not want the responsibility of the kingdom and his family. In fact, Ulysses can be free to stay home and relax and do very little for the rest of his life. That would be much easier that get back to the time he has been striving, against terrible obstacles, to reach his home, his family, his wife, his son. Since he wants to acheive knowledge, desire and courage by exploring more of the world, he shows no fear in this goal, even though it might be dangerous. After a person spend a significant of their life exploring, they can never stop as they are happy when they are traveling rather than staying put and enjoying the safety of being a king.
Nevertheless, he sees his son is good at the tasks of being a king; so he allows his son to take charge of the kingdom.
He devotes lines thirty three to lines forty three to rationalizing about the qualifications that his son has in the position of being the king, such as having intelligence and patience. His son being able to fulfill the position of the king of Ithaca allows Ulysses to feel at ease when he does go for more traveling or die of old age. So he does not need to worry about the people of Ithaca causing chaos, and he also no need to worry his wife as his son is qualified to take care of the rest. However, that is really just Ulysses justifying to himself that him leaving the kingdom is acceptable so that he does not feel the guilt of having his life perspective changed due to the twenty years of battle and
journey.
Regarding his wife, Ulysses only metioned her in line three, and no where else.
All other lines are devoted mainly to Ulysses recalling the good feelings of his twenty year travel, some to his son’s qualifications, and mainly to Ulysses rallying his fellow mariners for more journey despite their old age. This shows that his wife is not as important as his son as it is a one line versus eleven line comparison, and his son is not as important as his feelings about traveling as it is a eleven line versus fifty eight line comparison. The separation from his wife for twenty years signifincantly water downed his feelings for her. It was not Ulysses choice to be drafted for the war, so the consequences of Ulysses current attitude towards his wife is not entirely his fault. It is just that Ulysses lost all feelings towards his wife after being away from her for twenty years, despite his wife is loyal to him. It is as if when Ulysses was drafted for the war, he and his wife that a mutual
divorce.
In the last third of the poem, Ulysses goes and rally the mariners he traveled with before to set sail, despite all of them are old now. He tells them that despite them being old, they are strong because their life experience gives them a stronger will find happiness, as written in line sixty nine to seventy. He tells the mariners about finding new destinations, or they can die trying, which is also a good thing as they can visit their friend Achilles. Essentially, Ulysses is also using fact that those mariners life perspective also changed too. Those mariners are accustommed to travelling more than staying in one destination for a long time. Those mariners also have bonded with Achilles during the time together, and so for them to visit Achilles will bring up good friendship feelings. Which is why significant time and distance apart does not make the heart go fonder; instead, it will change the perspective of the people involved and how they view their life.