Themes, Ideas and ImagesFrom The Odyssey to Trafficked to Macklemore

ThemesThe themes of capture, perseverance, and longing for home are shown in The Odyssey as well as many modern works.

The Odyssey

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is held captive by two different women. They kept him for their own pleasure and denied his wishes to leave. He suffered greatly and missed his home and wife terribly. The audience learns an important lesson about handling disappointment and keeping a goal strong.

Trafficked

Kim Purcell’s young adult novel Trafficked, also shows the main character captured in a situation where she is helpless. The main character, Hannah, is a young Russian girl who has come to America supposedly to work as a nanny for a family while going to school.

Trafficked

Hannah soon finds out that she is being held captive, almost as a slave. Her employers/captors refuse to allow her to leave and threaten her with harm if she tries. Like Odysseus, she remains focused on her goal of escape and in the end is able to gain her freedom.

Escape from reality...

Another theme that Homer shows in The Odyssey is the human desire for escape. In the Lotus Eaters episode, Odysseus’ men are lured into the world of the Lotus Eaters, who only desire to eat the flower and forget their troubles. This escapism is an obstacle for Odysseus’ and his goal of returning home.

Salvadori Dali painted surrealistic works to show how our minds are drawn into an altered reality.

His paintings invite the viewer to enter an alternate universe, thus escaping our ordinary world.

Take it to the face, gulp

Months later the use went up

Every blunt was accompanied by the pink stuff

But godd*mn he loved that feelin'

Purple rain coated in the throat

Just so healin'

Medicine alleviate the sickness

Liquid affix and it comes with a cost

Wake up, cold sweat, scratchin', itchin'

Trying to escape the skin that barely fit him

Gone, get another bottle just to get a couple swallows

Headed towards the bottom couldn't get off it

Didn't even think he had a problem

Though he couldn't sleep without gettin' nauseous

Room spinnin', thinkin' he might've sipped just a little bit too much of that cough syrup

His eyelids closed shut

Sat back in the chair clutchin' that cup

Girlfriend came and a couple hours later said his name shook him but he never got up

Macklemore often writes about struggling with addiction, another attempt at escape from reality. In “Otherside”, he describes a man’s experience of substance abuse. Even though the man knows that his actions are harmful, the lure of the drugs and drink are too powerful for him to resist. It’s not clear at the end of the excerpt whether he succumbed to the temptations for the last time, but Macklemore leaves that open as a possibility.