what was the point of odysseus going thru the underworld?

Question

overall do u think it helped him or damaged him?

Answer 1

help

Answer 2

here's the thing.....Odysseus was a hero.......he was more in tune with the masculine side of his nature. By entering the underworld he was performing his katabasis (name for this type of journey into Hades). The whole point was to rejoin with the feminine aspect of his nature (since the underworld was was a sort of 'womb' and his reemergence singnified a rebirth). This made him a balanced and whole individual.

Answer 3

Odysseus wanted to talk with Tiresias, so he and his men journeyed to the River Acheron in Hades, where they performed sacrifices which allowed them to speak to the dead. Odysseus sacrificed a ram and the dead spirits were attracted to the blood. Odysseus held them at bay and demanded to speak with Tiresias, who told him how to pass by Helios's cattle and the whirlpool Charybdis. Tiresias also tells Odysseus that after he returns to Ithaca, he must take a well-made oar and walk inland with it to parts where no one mixes sea salt with their food, until someone asks him why he carries a winnowing fan. At that place, he was to fix the oar in the ground and make a sacrifice to appease Poseidon. He also told Odysseus that, after all that was done, that he would die an old man, "full of years and peace of mind", that his death would come from the sea and that his life would ebb away very gently. (Some read this as meaning that his death would come away from the sea.)

He also meets Achilles, who tells Odysseus that he would rather be a slave on earth than the king of the dead, Agammemnon, and his mother. The soul of Ajax, still resentful of Odysseus over the matter of Achilles's armor, refuses to speak, despite the latter's pleas of regret.

Odysseus also meets his comrade, Elpenor, who tells him of the manner of his death and begs him to give him an honorable burial.