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Odysseus Invisible M Ellison's Black Odyssey

Decent Essays

In “Invisible man: Ellison’s Black Odyssey”, John Stark describes how the Narrator in Invisible man and Odysseus in The Odyssey experience the same episodes, but how the outcomes for the two characters are different. The invisible man and Odysseus both have to visit the underworld but “The difference between Odysseus’ and the Invisible man’s visits are great” (Stark 5). Even though both characters visit the Underworld, each comes out with different knowledge and the invisible man doesn’t come out at all. This is a valuable because the author uses direct quotes from the book and draws good connections between characters and scenes in both books. “Invisible man: Ellison’s Black Odyssey” is an academic journal which was published by JSTOR, …show more content…

Even though the characters go through the same trials, in the Invisible Man the order in which they happen are different then in The Odyssey. This leads to a different outcome for the two heroes, Stark states; “… the invisible man ends up in a place like one from which Odysseus escapes, an underworld”, (Stark 5). While Odysseus experiences all these hard ships and receives the ability to return home in the end, the invisible man had to go through the same tasks but ended up trapped in an Underworld. The experience both characters had while in the underworld were vastly different as well “The biggest difference between the two episodes is that Odysseus rises from the Underworld and returns home, but the man-hole is the final step for the invisible man” (Stark 5). When Odysseus was down there, he learns how to get home and eventually makes his way back home to his family, while the Invisible man learns that he is invisible to society and is stuck in the underworld. These two examples show how the characters experience the same troubles and tasks but are not rewarded in the same

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