Close Reading of Merwin’s Odysseus Essay

The subject in W.S. Merwins poem Odysseus feels flourishing only at sea, and, because such a notion is atypical, he cannot express or understand where his true understructure actually is. oAt peace at sea patience / He has devoted toNumerous islands, yet unity and only(a) to call home, even though he Merwin never specifies which island Odysseus in reality calls home which / Was the one he kept sailing home to? W.S. Merwins speaker in Odysseus is concerned about his romantic interests. Wedded to his adventures, he experiences a schism when interacting with the women he meets on various islands. o practice before him, the unraveling patience / He was wedded to There were the islands / Each with its charrhood Odysseus seems to have a woman on each island, and, not versed which island is home, seems not to be particularly loyal to any one of them. oIndeed, Odysseus by and by even says that The association of all that he betrayed / Grew till it was the same whether he stayed / Or went. The only constant in his tone is, certainly, his oceanic adventure, which, season there may be many, never change noticeably in content.A solid ground-weary Odysseus relives his adventures in a repetitive, never-changing cycle, losing sight of the difference surrounded by ill-wishers and home. oJaded tone always the setting forth was the same, he had got nowhere however older, identical reproaches, it was the same whether he stayed or went The speaker in Odysseus roams the world, travelling in repetitive circles, hoping to allay the guilt that plagues him for betraying so many women. oClaiming that The knowledge of all that he betrayed / Grew till it was the same whether he stayed / Or went, Odysseus looks for puff from the guilt he experiences from not staying true to any one woman. oWhile his days are repetitive and unchanging, his adventures are a constant, and Odysseus is able to consider himself wedded to that unraveling patience he can keep coming back to a fter days on land.While Merwins speaker in Odysseus at times is unable to differentiate between those who wish him perils and those who remain contradictory and true, he continuously sails home, even while unable to define where home authentically is. What wonder / If sometimes he could not remember / Which was the one who wished on his departure / Perils that he could never sail through, / And which, improbable, remote, and true, / Was the one he kept sailing home to?Merwin rhetorically asks the listener to judge whether it really is Odysseuss fault that he cannot distinguish between his ill-wishers and his home community. oWho is deficiency Odysseus perils? Quite possible one of the women to which he was disloyal, and because there have been so many (every island, apparently), he now knows not which women still love him and which do not.W.S. Merwin describes in his poem Odysseus the rift many experience when separating themselves from their interpretations of the norm. oOdysseu s is accustomed to life as a traveler, with no real home on land. He also does not appear to be married to a woman rather, he claims to be wedded to an unraveling patience. However, while he is habituated to his daily life, to an outsider, Odysseus lives atypically. oOdysseus recognizes this fissure, but instead of living comfortably without regards to how others perceive him, he questions himself and attempts to shape his world into a way that outsiders would understand.