Guilt and Responsibility in The Odyssey
Why did Odysseus feel no guilt and no remorse after he slaughtered all 108 suitors? Why didn’t he face judgement of any kind for that? Surely, not all of the suitors were evil, not all of them deserved to die. He warned one of them, suggesting that he should leave. Another he recognized as someone who as a child he had held on his lap and told stories to. But, without exception, he and his cohorts slaughtered all of them. Then Odysseus ordered the death of a dozen of the palace handmaids who had caroused with the suitors. What could be more natural than for slave girls to do the bidding of and enjoy the attention of visiting nobles? What was their crime?
In the modern world, premeditation makes a crime more heinous. A murder that is planned and prepared for is murder one. Killing someone in a fit of anger or by negligence is a lesser crime, with far lesser penalty.
In the world of The Odyssey, those values are reversed. Odysseus plots and plans and lies. He goes to great lengths to set up the massacre of the suitors. The poet and the gods, as well, admire him for his intelligence, his wiliness, his premeditation.
The worst crime in that world is wrecklessness — the abandonment of reason and responsibility. That was the crime of Odysseus’ shipmates, which cost them their lives. That was also the crime for which the suitors and the handmaids who caroused with them were punished.
