The Older, The Better

For my essay I have decided to compare The Odyssey and Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth. I chose to compare these two literary works because they intrigued me and were very entertaining to read. They are also some of the oldest literary works known to have been written by man and predate the modern Christian era. So, they are heavily influenced by the people of the time and cultures that they lived in, as well as the beliefs that they shared about the world. These works try to explain things that happen in nature and why they happen in nature and how they happen. They also share a similarity in that deities or gods are involved in human lives and have an effect on them. In Inanna, she is a wise and sexual deity or goddess that comes into being through a series of events that happen in the book. She is defined as a very smart and knowledgable woman who brings life and fertility to her people. She is looked upon as being very wise by her people because of her possession of the Me, which she got from Enki in a beer competition. However, that wasn’t the only thing that she was known for; she was also known for providing her people with a bountiful harvest because she gets married to Dumuzi. Through their sexual acts they bring prosperity to the people of Sumer in the city of Uruk. Another way she displays her heroic status is by going down to the underworld and returning from it as well. She does this with the help of Ninshubur, who goes to Enki as Inanna had instructed prior to going down there. Inanna is loved by her people and she is very content with people worshipping her. As long as the people believe in her, she has power over them. She is also very open to outsiders, although it’s not expressed much in the book, it’s assumed that she is. And her status as a goddess is only challenged by Dumuzi when he lets the power of being king go to his head. Odysseus is a war hero from the Trojan War trying to get home after the war has been fought and the Greeks have won the war. He is looked upon as a noble and just leader and he is the King of Ithaca, where his wife waits for him to return home for 10 years. He is viewed upon as a very smart and cunning individual, as well as resourceful. The people in his kingdom long for him to come back while he is away, but they doubt that he is still alive since he is gone for so long. The gods are the ones who are preventing Odysseus from going home, but not all of them. Poseidon is one of the gods that is attempting to prevent Odysseus from going home because of the fact that he poked the eye out of his son Polyphemus, who was a cyclops on the island that Odysseus and his men were stuck on. Zeus, Athena and Hermes are some of the gods that were of Odysseus’s side and helped him in his quest to get back home to his family. Odysseus values honor, bravery, loyalty and family above everything else and when he returns home he kills all the suitors that were not loyal to him while he was away. In both literary works the gender representation is very male oriented. This is shown in Inanna due to the fact that all the male gods were seen by the people, such as the Sky God An and the Air God Enlil, while the female goddess of the underworld, Ereshkigal, isn’t seen at all. In The Odyssey the male dominance is constantly present seeing as the men are sent to fight in the war while the woman take care of the children and the house while they wait for their husbands to return. However, in Inanna the female role is expanded upon by the fact that Inanna gains her wisdom from the Me and the power of death from the underworld, and is needed by her people for fertility of the land. Even though Inanna marries Dumuzi, she was a strong, independent female figure when they met. But through the marriage, she became stronger as a female due to the fact that she could provide for her people by bringing prosperity. The Odyssey, however, doesn’t have very many strong female