Since I have been rereading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, I have decided to do a whole blog series about them. So, welcome to post number two in the series! Today we will talk about the similarities between Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey and the Percy Jackson books. I noticed while reading The Sea of Monsters, some of the monsters Percy encounters are the same ones Odysseus meets on his return from the Trojan War. When I looked more into it, I learned about a few other situations in the series that were similar to the Odyssey.
The Iliad and the Odyssey
What is the Iliad and the Odyssey? The ancient Greek poet Homer wrote both of these epic poems around the 8th century B.C. Homer wrote them in dactylic hexameter, often used in Greek and Latin poetry. For those poetry people, dactylic refers to the stress on words. The pattern goes a long syllable followed by two short ones. Hexameter means there are six dactyls per line. It gets a little more complicated than that, but if you want to read more about it check out the Wikipedia page or thoughtco.com.
The Iliad follows the end of the battle for Troy. The battle for Troy started when Paris of Troy took the king of Sparta’s wife. Greece declared war on Troy for taking her. The Iliad shows how the Greek gods were split on who to side with. Such as, Aphrodite sided with Troy because Paris took the wife out of love. Heroes on both sides of the conflicts duel and armies clash. The notable heroes in the conflict are Odysseus, Achilles, and Hector. Achilles ends up killing Hector but refuses to give the body of Hector back to the city of Troy. The Iliad ends with Achilles returning the body to Troy and allowing a 12 day break from war so the city can grieve the death of Hector. ‘
After the war ended, Odyyseus must return home. The Odyssey follows the story of his trip back to Ithaca where he reigns as king. An angry Poesidon does not want Odyyseus to return home, so he asks Athena to help him return while Poesidon is away. After many years and hardships on the sea, Odysseus finally makes it home. Athena disguises him as a beggar to allow him to see the state of his house. He discovers many suitors want to marry his wife because everyone thought he was dead. Penelope, his wife, decides to hold a contest and the winner gets to marry her. The suitors must string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow from it. Odysseus competes in the competition disguised as the beggar and wins. He reveals himself and kills all the suitors, finally allowing him to be with his wife once more.
Both of these epic poems are read world wide. They are especially important to the western world. The Iliad and the Odyssey has been adapted into many other forms of media. It then makes sense why a book about Greek mythology would include many similar stories in it. Let’s dive right into the similarities.
Book One and Four
When I went to write this post, I originally planned on talking only about book 2, The Sea of Monsters. However, I realized the first and fifth book also have similarities. Looking at book one first, Percy, Annabeth and Grover visit the Lotus Hotel and Casino. In the hotel, they eat a treat that traps them in the hotel. In the movie, if I remember correctly, they eat a flower shaped cookie. They lose all sense of time and want to stay in the hotel.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s crew visits the island of lotus eaters. The lotus eaters give them fruit from the lotus tree and the crew forgets about their home and wants to stay with them. Both Odysseus and Percy drag their crew and friends away from the lotus, which snaps them back into reality. The Lotus Hotel and Casino become a somewhat important plot point in book three.
In book four, Percy gets blasted to the island of Calypso. Calypso nurses him back to health and ends up falling in love with him. She offers Percy immortality on her island if he agrees to stay with her. Unfortunately for Calypso, Percy has friends in need of his help. A god, Hephestus, comes and offers a way off the island. Percy accepts the way off the island to save his friends.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus gets trapped on Calypso’s island for 7 years. Calypso also falls in love with him. Hermes, a different god, offers Odysseus a raft off the island. Odysseus agrees to leave the island because he wants to get back to his wife. In the next Greek mythology book series Riordan writes, he revisits Calypso and her island.
Book Two
In The Sea of Monsters, Percy must embark on a similar quest as Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Percy must retrieve the golden fleece to save the camp. That is where the similarities of the quest end and the Odyssey begins. The book starts off with Percy playing dodgeball with laestrygones. Laestrtygones are a race of cannibal giants.
Likewise, Odysseus and his crew found themselves on an island filled with these cannibalistic giants. Like the dodgeball scene in The Sea of Monsters, they throw boulders at Odysseus’s ships sinking all but one of them while they make their escape.
To enter the sea of monsters, one must sail their ship between Scylla and Charybidis. These two monsters are on either side of a narrow gap. Scylla lies on top of one side where it grabs people off the ship and eats them. Charybidis makes giant whirlpools to sink and suck in ships. Odysseus decides to sail closer to Scylla where he ends up losing six more of his crew. In The Sea of Monsters Percy and his friends lose an entire ship but manage to survive.
The very next chapter in The Sea of Monsters involves Circe and her island. Percy and Annabeth end up on Circe’s Island where she turns Percy into a guinea pig while giving Annabeth a makeover. Percy ends up as a human again by eating multivitamins Hermes, the god of travel and messages, gave him.
Odysseus also ends up in Circe’s land where she turns his crew into pigs. Odysseus doesn’t get turned into a pig because he ate a herb Hermes also gave him. After, Odysseus ends up fighting Circe and she ends up falling in love with him because of his courage. She agrees to turn his crew back into men. I know if a woman tried to fight me because I turned her friends into pigs I’d for sure fall in love with her. Isn’t Greek mythology great.
After both Percy and Odysseus encounter Circe, they come across the sirens. Sirens as in people not like fire truck sirens. Sirens sing beautiful songs which lure sailors to their death. Riordan’s version of sirens sing songs showing people what they want most in the world. Both Annabeth and Odysseus want to listen to the sirens when they sail by. Both Odysseus’s crew and Percy tie them up to the mast so they won’t jump overboard and get eaten by the sirens. The biggest difference between the two, Annabeth cuts herself free and jumps in the water where Percy jumps after her to save her, while Odysseus listens and does not escape.
Lastly, Percy and Odysseus encounter the cyclops Polyphemus. Odysseus’s crew enter a cave where they find cheese and wine. The cyclops comes back to his cave and eats two crew members. Odysseus helps his men escape by stabbing Polyphemus in the eye. He tells Polyphemus his name is nobody and so Polyphemus says Nobody stabbed me in the eye. While blind, the crew escapes the cave by hiding under Polyphemus’s sheep. Percy sneaks into Polyphemus’s cave underneath a sheep to rescue his friends. Annabeth distracts the cyclops by shouting her name is Nobody. The giant gets angry because he remembers Nobody.
In Conclusion
Rick Riordan takes inspiration from these classic epic poems. I believe it helps teach young adults these stories and get them interested in mythology. A fresh take on a very old idea can be refreshing. If you think I missed a similarity, or noticed other similar stories like Jason and the Argonauts, feel free to comment below. I might just add it in a future post, or update this one. Stay tuned for more Percy Jackson blogs these upcoming weeks.
As always, happy reading!
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