Believe waking as much as to find strangers in your house – consuming your meals, killing your animals, then giggling as they blind you. Later, they inform the arena you have been the monster.
We’re describing some of the higher identified episodes of Homer’s Odyssey, written across the past due eighth or early seventh century BC. The intruders are protagonist Odysseus’s males, and the “monster” they assault is Polyphemus, a solitary massive shepherd later remembered simplest as a cyclops.
For hundreds of years, we’ve adopted the hero’s adventure with out asking what it prices. However what if the cyclops wasn’t the monster, however simply one of the lives shattered alongside the best way?
Director Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation of The Odyssey hits cinemas in July 2026. However will it have fun Odysseus because the artful hero – or in the end confront the wreckage he leaves in his wake?
Homer’s Odyssey, composed on the flip of the eighth to the seventh century BC, follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he struggles to go back house from the Trojan warfare, outwitting monsters, gods and destiny. It’s a story of resilience and crafty – and the template for numerous tales since: the artful guy triumphs over the monstrous different and sails house in glory.
We all know the trend by means of center. However we hardly ask: who will get trampled alongside the best way, and whose tale isn’t informed?
This text is a part of Rethinking the Classics. The tales on this sequence be offering insightful new tactics to take into accounts and interpret vintage books and works of art. That is the canon – with a twist.
Within the scene of Odysseus v Polyphemus, the cyclops is solid as a brute, a savage who traps the hero and his males in a cave. Odysseus responds with mythical crafty: wine, lies, a sharpened stake – and get away.
From the out of doors, it’s textbook heroism, but Homer himself hints at the price of that victory. He has Odysseus expose his title simplest after the get away: “Tell them it was Odysseus, sacker of cities, who blinded you.” It’s a second of delight, no longer necessity – the spark that seals his destiny. In that immediate, the artful survivor turns into the boastful aggressor, and the tale’s ethical axis starts to tilt.
But if we shift standpoint, the tale adjustments. Polyphemus is a solitary shepherd, residing in peace. Strangers spoil into his house, thieve his meals, kill his farm animals, and depart him blinded and damaged. His cave isn’t a jail however a house below siege. His violence, whilst brutal, emerges from desperation. You must simply argue that Polyphemus isn’t the villain. He’s the sufferer.
Odysseus and Polyphemus by means of Arnold Böcklin (1896).
Museum of High-quality Arts Boston
This reversal unearths a troubling trend: our cultural intuition to root for the protagonist, it doesn’t matter what they do – so long as the motive feels noble. From historical epics to Hollywood blockbusters, we excuse deception, destruction, even homicide, if it serves the “greater good”.
We cheer when the hero escapes – however hardly glance again at what’s left in the back of. A burned town. A grieving circle of relatives. A blinded shepherd. If it suits the tale, we settle for the collateral harm as vital. That’s the seductive common sense of heroism: blank endings, messy penalties.
In Homer’s writing, Polyphemus will get a unmarried second of anguish – a prayer to Poseidon, his father – after which vanishes from the tale. His voice, his ache, his model of occasions don’t have compatibility the heroic arc.
And this trend continues. Empires and conquerors have lengthy branded enemies as “barbarians”, “savages” or “monsters” to justify violence. From Roman propaganda to colonial domination within the Americas and Africa – and, extra lately, to claims of “denazification” in Ukraine – this tactic dehumanises the “other side” and erases their tales. Strip the enemy of humanity, and their struggling turns into legitimised.
If historical past is so frequently written by means of the victors, we will have to ask: what stays of heroism once we in the end pay attention to the so-called monsters? As world conflicts polarise public discourse round heroes and villains, the tales we select, and the ones we silence, topic greater than ever.
The trailer for The Odyssey.
What if we shift the highlight? Polyphemus turns into greater than a monster – he’s a reflect, appearing how unchecked heroism can slip into cruelty. Cleverness isn’t distinctive feature. And survival at others’ expense isn’t at all times justified.
Odysseus, the “man of many turns” is good however ambiguous. His movements deliver destruction along triumph. For each and every hero who returns, many endure or are misplaced. True heroism lies no longer simply in bold escapes, however in proudly owning the associated fee left in the back of.
The cyclops’ story warns us how simply we dehumanise the ones within the hero’s method. How we flatten complexity to suit a script. How we justify hurt if the tale feels proper. Rethinking Polyphemus complicates Odysseus and demanding situations us as storytellers and audiences.
The actual problem for Nolan’s The Odyssey gained’t be spectacle or scale, however standpoint. Will it dare to seem past the hero? Will it give voice to these left in his shadow? Clint Eastwood did simply that with Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), telling the tale of the fight of Iwo Jima from opposing aspects. Via letting the “enemy” discuss, he shattered the semblance of a unmarried, righteous tale.
If Nolan embraces that type of complexity, The Odyssey gained’t simply retell a fantasy however will problem us to reconsider who we title as heroes and to pay attention extra carefully to these we as soon as brushed aside as monsters.
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