om. Odysseus faces many hardships on his journey home and could have easily given up. However, Odysseus overcomes the adversities because he is a true hero and must return home to restore his kingdom under his rule. In book V the story changes its focus on Telemakhos to a focus on the adventures of Odysseus. After being held captive by Calypso and treated like a god for several years Odysseus is still determined to return home. When she asks him why it is so important for him to return to his wife and kingdom and risk more hardships by returning he answers in lines 224-233 in book V:‘My lady goddess, here is no cause for anger. My quiet Penelope- how well I know- would seem a shade before your majesty, death and old age being unknown to you, while she must die. Yet, it is true, each day I long for home, long for the sight of home.If any god has marked me out again for shipwreck, my tough heart can undergo it. What hardship have I not long since endured at sea, in battle! Let the trial come.”In this statement Odysseus has explained that he has endured many years without his wife and homeland. He misses Ithaca so much that he welcomes any obstacles he must overcome to return home.As part of the in media res method an author must fill in the missing details of a story by inserting flashbacks and taking the story temporally out of chronological order. Homer uses Odysseus’s flashback to tell the story of his adventure home to the Bruns 4Phaiakians. When Odysseus arrives at the island of the Phaiakians he begs them to bring him home to Ithaca. Odysseus then explains his journey that brought him to their island and all of the hardships he has overcome. He flashbacks his story starting with The Trojan War then goes into the rest of his hardships including Ismarus, the Land of the Lotus-eaters, Land of Cyclops, The bag of winds from Aeolia, the Land of the Laestrygonians, the witch Circe, the Siren’s enchanting song, Scy...
