ULYSSES, GIRLS GET LOST AT SEA
I GREW UP READING GREEK MYTHOLOGY, I OWE IT TO MY GRANDMA, she is the one who introduced me to the tales of Gods, heroes, legendary cities and to the big name, the greatest question point in the history of literature: Homer, or as we call him, Omero. As an Italian, I believe that all these stories, characters and values are still present at the roots of our culture. Especially for women since female characters in mythology are often symbolic of the female condition; we could talk for years about how they are usually victims, they are constantly blamed for something they did not do or that did not depend on them like their own beauty and they are always punished with unbearable cruelties. Echo, Daphne, Psyche, Helen and many others, none of these characters made me feel anything but bitterness when I first read their stories as a child (actually, when my grandma read it out loud to me), that’s why many girls find comfort in them. At some point an idea started growing in me: what if I did not have to relate to those tragic stories of abuse and neglect, what if I could relate to a king? The one character that truly awakened something in me was Ulysses. His story made me feel like I could be more than a victim, it made me feel like I could be man. He is the hero of wit, cunning, curiosity and adventure. All of a sudden, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
WIT, to be heard, to get credit, to be genius.
Ulysses is not particularly handsome or strong, he is extremely sharp, he ends a decennial war just by believing in the power of his wit: he came up with the deadliest trick ever narrated, the Trojan horse. The other men believed him, they built the horse, he succeeded, Troy was defeated, he got credit. There was only one person who would have been able to defeat the his trick, Cassandra, she knew the horse would have been the end of Troy, but she was just another woman who was not believed (because of her curse, but that’s a whole other matter).This was the first thing I envied of Ulysses: the right to be considered a genius, the weight that his words and ideas had in the eyes of the the other men. Ulysses is a hero, but he often uses his wit to do immoral and heartless actions for his own interest, most of all, he uses his brains to save himself in the worst situations; the most famous anecdote is the one in which he fools Polyphemus introducing himself as Nobody so that the other Cyclops would not understand him when he’d ask for help. Ulysses also pretends to be crazy to not go to Troy at the beginning of the war. He is a liar, he lies for his own benefit. Any woman would be degraded at his place. Where men are considered genius, women are called calculating. Ulysses is free from the sense of shame that us women are used to feel for using our intelligence to prevail or simply to defend ourselves.
PENELOPE, girls get lost at sea.
I think the Odyssey is the reason I grew up believing the only way I could be fulfilled in life was to run away, far from home and from the people who loved me. I did not think it would have made me sad to be far away from home, because my heart would have always been devoted to freedom and adventure. One of the things that are criticised the most about the character of Ulysses is his relationships with Circe while his wife Penelope was waiting for him at Ithaca, remaining loyal to her husband and his reign while being pressured by many men to remarry. I honestly believe to be useless to criticise this aspect of Ulysses’ character without keeping in mind that in the ancient Greek’s mentality men were absolutely not supposed to be loyal to their wives! Reading the Odyssey now, I feel that Ulysses is not able to love anyone completely because his curiosity is the one feeling that truly governs him and his one true love, the one thing that he craves and desires, is to reach the unknown. His life, his mind and his soul are devoted to discovery and adventure, that’s why I started thinking for the first time about a life free from the idea (or duty) of marriage and motherhood. A life on the road. I find curious how such an ancient piece of fiction made me wonder about more modern ideas.To be loved more than you love, that was my idea of freedom and independence growing up. Who leaves must be the one to love less, to get hurt less, I thought. The thought of not aching for anyone made me feel boundless. Love has always been the cage of women. Women’s hearts have always been narrated as fragile but, of course, that never made sense. What if a woman freed herself from her own heart? Wouldn’t hers be such a great story to tell? What if we stopped destroying our Penelope’s shroud and got lost at sea too?
HOME AND THE INFERNO.
If we think about it, desiring a life into the storm at the mercy of the waves, or on the road, or travelling in an unsure economic condition seems odd, almost madness. It’s bizarre how staying forever in the comfort of my home can be scarier than all of the dangers of the world. If I keep mirroring myself in the character of Ulysses I can say that after facing monstrous creatures, war, spells and the rage of the gods, the one force that defeated the king of Ithaca was his own hunger for knowledge and need to discover it all, to reach all that was reachable and more. What he had seen was never enough, there was always more. Dante imagined, in the Inferno, that Ulysses died drowning in the ocean, trying to reach the Purgatory, overcoming the limits of the human world. I believe Dante related to him, I believe that he could see Ulysses’ faults and that he saw him as a degeneration of himself. In the end, the explorer is lost in the storm of the sea just like the writer fight for his life in the storm of his own mind. Could this be the origin of the desire to run? Could it be that the illusion of escaping our own mind manifests itself in the desire of escaping our home?
Sara, 18, Florence - Italy ✯ IG: @sara.gallicchio