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Loss And Loyalty In Homer's The Odyssey

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The Odyssey Essay
The Odyssey is a life-long tale of love, war, and the mythical. Odysseus, the main character, is a brave man that battles monsters, mortals, gods, and goddesses to see his wife in Ithica once more. Throughout the story, Odysseus faces the death of his crew, the sacrifice of innocent lives, and the loyalty of family and kin. But he is not the only one struggling under brute conditions. Ithica believes it has lost its protector and abandoned hope of his return. Through striking symbolism, Homer depicts the three reoccurring themes in The Odyssey: loss and loyalty.
In this epic, Elpenor represents the loss of friends and family that is faced by Odysseus and the loyalty that is beheld in him. “Do not abandon me unwept, unburied,

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