Throughout the Odyssey, Odysseus crosses countless boundaries, from literal ones from kingdoms like Phaeacia and Ithaca, to the borders of life and death in Hades. However, there is a boundary that Odysseus seems unable, and perhaps even unwilling, to cross: the boundary between soldier and civilian. Every situation he encounters must be dealt with with cunning or violence, which helped win the Trojan War. Such a problem is not unique to the legendary hero, however. Since there has been war, there have been warriors marked by its horrors. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayWar has always made it easier to change boundaries, whether it be the boundaries of country, culture, or even the property. However, such a change can be violent. War is hell, as the old saying goes, and watching hell is a traumatic experience. This is not a new idea. The term shell shock has been around since World War I, and some have argued that the concept existed even before that. Jonathan Shay posits that one of the soliloquies in the first part of Shakespeare's Henry IV, written around 1597, describes PTSD uncannily well. If we take the hypothesis that ancient people knew about PTSD, even though they didn't have a name for it, to its logical conclusion, it is fair to assume that Homer knew about PTSD when he wrote the character of Ulysses. include unwanted memories, overly negative assumptions about the world, hypervigilance, and increased irritability. All these traits are found in the main character of The Odyssey. The Trojan War was undoubtedly traumatic. Odysseus would have seen the Trojans slaughter his 1 allies, while their greatest champion, Achilles, sulked in a tent. He would have been helpless as he watched the supposedly invincible warrior die from a miraculous bullet in the ankle. And he should take responsibility for the innocent women and children massacred when his own Trojan Horse scheme allowed his comrades into the city. Indeed, the suffering of the city's innocents is deliberately evoked by the text when Ulysses collapses at the memory of the war. To make matters worse, Odysseus's losses don't end there. Its crew, all survivors of the war, die horribly. Whether he was eaten by a cyclops or struck by the sun god Helios, Odysseus is the only survivor. But even before these traumatic events, Odysseus is irritable and cruel, accusing his men of things that are simple human follies. By the time he reaches Phaeacia, Odysseus is not even willing to reveal his identity to the sympathetic Phaeacians, paranoia having taken over him. Added to this is the patronage of the goddess Athena, whose two domains, wisdom and battle, are a constant reminder of what Odysseus did during the Trojan War, and whose advice tends towards violence, as when she tells Odysseus that he must murder all the inhabitants. suitors, rather than, say, revealing that he is alive and kicking them out of his house. Of course, PTSD is just as much of a problem in the modern era. Perhaps the most well-known cause in modern American consciousness is the Vietnam War, and many horrific stories have been reported about that war. In his book The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brian describes things like pulling the remains of a fellow soldier out of a tree, or another soldier tying a puppy to a landmine and detonating it. And just as Odysseus was the popular image of the hero of the Trojan War, the,.