Joanah Eresechima - Epic the Musical and the Underworld

 While reading Somewhere I’ve never travelled, the section that says, “The journey often represents a going into the dark places of oneself, to find certain truths hidden from us in our conscious life”, caught my interest. This is a book analyzing myths so, of course, Odysseus was brought up. It is mentioned that Odysseus entered the underworld to find his way home. While that is true in the Odyssey, in Epic the Musical, his trip to the Underworld serves that purpose and another: for him to reconcile with his movement from a man to a monster. In the second song of the musical “Just a Man”, Odysseus is grappling with the knowledge that he’d have to kill Prince Hectors son, Astyanax. The song sounds like a lullaby, as if he is trying to soothe the child and maybe himself too by extension. Because Zeus gives him no choice but to do it in the previous song “The Horse and the Infant”, saying no matter what Odysseus tried, Astyanax will kill him when he gets older if Odysseus didn’t kill him at that moment. Even knowing that, Odysseus is in no way enthusiastic about what he has to do. He mentions that he’s thinking back to his own son, Telemachus, who he has not seen since he was an infant. Though he sees Telemachus in Astyanax, his need to get back to his own son and wife that are waiting for him outweighs the sadness he feels with killing this baby. Still, he tries to justify himself, saying that he is just a man, just a human whose fate is out of his control. With that, he drops the baby from the tower and is forced to move on.

Later, when he blinds Polyphemus and is about to leave his island, Athena tells him to go back and finish the cyclops off. However, Odysseus immediately refuses, saying that he wanted to be merciful in a world full of cruelty. He doesn’t mention it, but this definitely is influenced by his killing of the infant. He had no choice back then but now that he can choose to be merciful and allow the cyclops to live, he has a chance to take back control of his life and his fate. However, this decision comes back to haunt him as the Polyphemus’ father, Poseidon, punishes him for sparing his son, saying that the mercy he awarded the cyclops only caused more problems for himself down the road. Just like how with the infant, he doesn’t have to worry about Astyanax coming to kill him later in life, if he had just killed the cyclops, Poseidon wouldn’t have had to come and avenge him. Odysseus does end up getting away but 550 of his men end up dying from the crashing waves initiated by Poseidon. Once again, he is forced to move on from this loss, but it becomes obvious that the guilt from these deaths he caused are weighing down on him.

In the song “The Underworld”, he sails through the underworld to find Tiresias who may have the answer he needed to get home but first, he has to face his dead comrades and loved ones, including the men who died from Poseidon, one of his closest friends that got killed by Polyphemus, and his mom who died waiting for him to come home. They all represent what he has lost due to his mercifulness. This, coupled with his interaction with Tiresias who tells him he won’t go back home as the same person, throws Odysseus into a spiral where he considers if his mindset is wrong. He looks to the monsters they have faced and questions if they’ve ever experienced guilt for killing others. He practically answers his own question, saying that they all had something to protect and given the chance to deal with it with their own hands, they do it in an instant. In that moment, Odysseus decides that in order to get home to his wife and son, he needed to adopt that thought process and become like those monsters. By throwing away his guilt, he could ascend to the status of these powerful beings that seemed to be able to create their own fates and through that, live without suffering.