The Conservative Movement and ‘The Odyssey’

Just a few weeks after our nation’s 250th anniversary, Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic “The Odyssey” will hit theaters. The conservative movement can learn something from Odysseus, the “man of twists and turns,” nearly three millennia after the poem was composed.

As colossal as the poem’s story is—being stretched over 10 years and encompassing the entire Mediterranean—“The Odyssey” fundamentally tells the story of home. The most important lessons to be learned from it are domestic.

The poem centers on Odysseus, the long-suffering king of puny Ithaca, who is trying to return home following 10 years fighting in the Trojan War. Odysseus’ journey to reclaim his throne lasts a decade.

Meanwhile in Ithaca, a fatherless generation has crowded out his heir, Telemachus, and vies for the hand of his wife, Queen Penelope. In order to return to his land and defend his home against usurpers, Odysseus must contend with giants, raging winds, and the wrath of the god Poseidon.

At every turn in the poem, Homer depicts a vision of home, though these often turn out to be false homes. Three of the best-known, perverted portraits of domestic life in “The Odyssey” can tell us what true homecoming means and what sort of man is worthy of it. 

In one of the most atmospheric scenes of the entire poem, Odysseus weeps on the shores of Calypso’s island, where he has been captive for seven years. Calypso, a nymph, has enchanted Odysseus and kept him prisoner as her “husband” for seven years.

Homer provides two images that evoke domestic life, saying (in the A.T. Murray translation) that “A great fire was burning on the hearth,” as Calypso sang sweet songs. Despite the domestic feeling of this scene, both images undermine true homecoming.

The fire does not warm Odysseus’ own hearth, and the songs are not Penelope’s. Despite Calypso’s cosplay as his wife, Odysseus weeps. Absent from his own hearth, wife, son, and throne, the king cannot rule as he knows he must. This is domesticity without duty. He is a king become a slave.

At another point in the epic, Odysseus recalls the story of when he and his crew come upon a cyclops. Even where monsters dwell, there were “well-watered meadows” where “vines would never fail.” Once again, the scene feigns peace and prosperity, but reality is far crueler.

The one-eyed monster seizes Odysseus and his crew, for their bones are delicacies for cyclopes. It is a hilarious perversion of the hospitality that ought to be offered to strangers. The Phaeacians, Odysseus’ great ally at the end of his journey, feed the wayfarer; the Cyclops feeds on the wayfarer.

In the third portrait of perverted domestic life, Poseidon forces Odysseus and his crew to the seductive home of the witch Circe. After a toilsome journey, Circe’s facade of welcome draws in the crew. All but Odysseus are so swayed by the prospect of comfort that they let their guard down when offered wine, and Circe swiftly uses her magic to turn them into swine. Even Odysseus falls eventually and stays with his men a full year “feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine.”

Homer depicts clearly what happens when home-bound men willingly forget their way. They give up their defenses against evil. They glut themselves on expedient things. Ultimately, they become pigs.

After a year, Odysseus and his men finally recall their duty and confront the witch. But because they have been so long spellbound in her house, passage requires a unique retribution: Odysseus is forced to descend to the underworld and confront characters from his past before he is allowed to leave the island. In the end, he makes the journey and leaves Hades unscathed, ready for more adventure.

The conservative movement in America has seen versions of each of these stories. The Biden years were Calypso’s island. While trapped there, conservatives in government were told constantly by the administration that progressivism was the true homeland. Politically, conservatives were largely blocked from the exercise of power.

Progressives are cyclopes, seeing with one eye and devouring American families with anti-human policies. Thankfully, in 2024, the cyclopes were blinded, and conservatives escaped out of the darkness.

In recent months, though, conservatives themselves have been to blame, like Odysseus’ crew, who were turned into pigs in their complacency. We are resting easy in the comfort of power. Failure to pass the SAVE America Act constitutes a dereliction of duty comparable to Odysseus’ year in Circe’s hall.

But if we are the heroes of our own story—as we should be—we can push through the long, winding journey home. There is hope for the conservative movement, though it has drunk some bad wine and answered the call of certain sirens.

The widespread interest in Nolan’s adaptation of the ancient epic speaks to the same underlying need as Telemachus’ zeal for his father’s return. Younger Americans, and Gen Z in particular, have seen enough of the “new way.”

Young people are beginning to see through the “suitors” of American culture who try to usurp rightful rule and thought. Progressive leaders have brought more harm than good, and they certainly did not inspire unity.

Like Telemachus, those who are tired of a void in the American way of life have gone in search of older things. Conservatives hold the answer: a hearth warming one’s own home and a song for one’s own children.

Odysseus made it home. If we chart the right course, conservatives will too, under a rosy-fingered dawn.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.