The First True Adventure by Marcella

The First True Adventure by Marcella - July 2013 Scholarship Essay

Until my freshman year of high school, I was convinced that the only books that could ever be considered true literature had to involve either childhood trauma, race struggles, or the holocaust, and could never contain magic or monsters. I had resigned to forever reading only realistic fiction and moody, dark American novels that took place during some of the less savory moments of our past. My dreams of high fantasy and grand science fiction adventures had crumpled into nothingness during middle school, and I faced the next stage of my education with grim prospects for the reading list.

And then there was the Odyssey.

Brilliantly crafted, full of adventure and heroes and gods and monsters, I wondered where this book had been my whole life. Here was a story that not only spoke to me, but left echoes of its lessons ingrained on my psyche. The heroes journey, told in the setting of such a colorful and vibrant world populated with grand characters, could only be described as epic. This was a story about the hero, the world, and the journey, and it was beautiful because for once, I wasn't stuck inside someone's head as they struggled to overcome their problems or the problems of their little town. Finally, the actions of the main character had an effect on the story around them, and Odysseus was anything but a bystander swept up in a historical event or a debilitating mental illness.

Since then, I’ve always wondered why we didn’t read this book sooner. The Odyssey is an epic journey, a hero’s tale in which the good and bad actions of the main character have a direct effect on his surroundings, on a large scale. When Odysseus is clever, it gets him out of  a tight spot with the Cyclops. When he gives into his lust, he is ensnared by Circe.  This theme of exaggerated cause and effect is echoed in fairy tales, where the punishment for stealing an apple could be execution and the reward for helping an old woman could mean a lifetime of happiness. The reason for the overblown reward system is that it allows the reader to clearly see the repercussions of certain moral decisions, something that is integral to the development of the reader’s own sense of morality. By surrounding young readers with books that focus on internal struggles, it is hard for them to understand the main character’s ability to work change in the external world around them, and they can become unaware of their own ability in that respect.
The Odyssey inspired me more than any book I had read before then, because it showed me a hero that had power over his surroundings. Instead of a psychological or health issue, Odysseus’s monsters were physical representations of obstacles, and his triumph over them represented a clear victory. Instead of trying to translate the emotional or familial problems of the main characters in the other books I’d read, Odysseus’s monsters were a clear metaphor for me. You can overcome hardships through strength, but sometimes you need wit as well. There is a difference between cleverness and wisdom. The same lessons he learned when defeating his monsters apply to the monsters I face today--school, work, the stress of college applications. Instead of searching for deeper layers of meaning in a modern narrative or a historical account, I spent my time with the Odyssey enjoying the adventure and learning along with Odysseus that there are different kinds of strength, and that anyone can be the hero of their own tale as long as they are ready to change the world around them.