This is one of my favourite alternate character interpretations. You all know the poem, basically an old Ulysses decides to go back to adventuring after returning home from the Odyssey.
But does this decision make him a heroic figure or a massive twat?
On the heroic side, he’s stuck in a job he hates and isn’t good at (being king;* “I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.”) and wants to do something great before he dies, seeking knowledge for it’s own sake (“To follow knowledge like a sinking star”*). What could be more noble? It’s the Americ…er, Ithican Dream.
OR is he Ancient Greece’s equivalent to Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, trying to recapture his glory days while being an asshole to his family? Sure, we’d all like to abandon out shitty jobs to go sailing around the Med, but we have responsibilities mate (“This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle…When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.”).
Whadya reckon?
