Katabasis in Myth and Film

The peer reviewed article that I read was written by Johan Goldberg and entitled A Movie For All Time. The article was about the movie Groundhog Day and how the movie has almost two different natures. It starts by taking about the basic story which is the hilarious adventure of a weather man living the same day over and over. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a Pittsburg weatherman who travels to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to report on the annual Groundhog Day festivities. Here Phil gets caught up in a time warp in which he is forced to live February 2^nd for an unknown number of days (we see 34 of them). Phil is egotistical and rude in the beginning of the movie thinking he is was too good for this small town and its people who he refers to as “hicks”. He repeatedly tries to bed his new producer Rita, played by Andie MacDowell, to no avail. Phil plays with the idea of no consequences by driving recklessly and getting but in jail, only to wake up the next morning in his bed. The second part of this article is entitled “The Metamorphosis” and I think this title is really fitting. The reason I choose to write a paper on this movie was because of the fact that Phil succeeds in his own kind of katabasis. He journeys to hell and back in this movie and he truly does experience a metamorphosis. This part of the article talks about what Phil had to achieve to perform his anabasis including the shedding of his selfish ways and the listening to his own inner voices. In the end of the story Phil ends up with everything he ever wanted, he just had to get it in a roundabout way. The article explains the movie to be “funny first and philosophical second” which I think is definitely the truth. I really like this movie for its humor and for the katabasis and transformation undergone by the main character Phil.

My group talked about the natures of the souls that inhabit the underworld and how their experiences differs form the souls of Homer’s underworld. Virgil’s underworld is different because everyone goes to hell, or Dis. There is no heaven there is only a better part of hell. When Aeneas first arrives on the banks of the river Styx he sees “mothers and men, the forms with all life spent of heroes in great valor, boys and girls unmarried, and young sons laid on the pyre before their parents eyes”. These are the people waiting to get ferried across the river into Dis. The souls of Dis come from many different categories including wandering souls, infants and innocents, suicides, souls of war heroes, and unhappy lovers. All of these souls are in seperate parts of hell, something that you didn’t see in Homer’s underworld. The souls of Virgil’s underworld are judged when the get to hell by either Rhadamanthus or  Minos, who determine where they are going to live in the underworld. Unlike Homer’s hell, the hell in Virgil’s story seems to have a bigger sense of contaiment and of place. There are many different sections of hell and the souls that live in each are bound to stay there. There is also a difference because the souls in Dis can experience a reincarnation if they drink from the river of forgetfullenss. If a soul were to do this they would begin a new life. This element is special to Virgil’s hell and is essential because of the fact that all souls go to the underworld in his belief.

The steps in a Katabatic Journey are very similar be the hero male or female. Odysseus and Demeter are both separated from family and then are forced to go through hell (both figuratively and literally) to get their family back. Both disguise themselves in an attempt to find information about their family, and both are forced to lie to fit in with their new surroundings. It is not the general structure that changes, but rather, the details that shift from story to story.

In the Hymn to Demeter, the focus is put more forcefully on the sorrow of Demeter, and her endless woe than it ever was for Odysseus. And the journey to the underworld was much more mental than physical – Demeter herself never travelled to the actual, physical underworld; she made Earth a barren hell, though, until she got her daughter back. Persephone was, in fact, the only person that actually travelled to the actual, physical hell against their will in the story. And in Homer’s telling she does not actually experience a Katabasis in anything but the most literal sense of that she descended into hell. She does not actually learn or mature from the experience; she only sits and waits to be saved.

The focus of the entire story was much more mental than physical. Demeter does not, herself, bring Persephone back, but basically blackmails Zeus into having her brought back. And Persephone has even less power – she can only hope that others can save her. Instead of a focus on brute strength, the focus is on the woman’s ability to manipulate others.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter I noticed that the actions of Demeter where similar to the actions of Odysseus and Athene. After Persephone was taken by Hades to the underworld Demeter, who was in pure distress, disguised herself as an elderly woman. When she met the young girls and later their mother she lied and told them a story of her being a Cretan who had been brought there by pirates. This was very similar to the disguise and story that Odysseus told when he needed to sneak into his household. It was interesting that it was Persephone who was taken into the underworld by Hades, yet the story does not put emphasis on her decent or journey. Instead, the sorrow and days of Demeter are focused on. Demeter creates her own type of hell for the humans and immortals because she deprives the earth of life. It is not until she sees her daughter that Demeter revives the earth saving the people from death and allowing the Gods to receive their gifts and sacrifices. Unlike the Katabasis of other men such as Odysseus, Persephone did not willingly plan or decide that she must take the journey. Instead, she was physically forced and held there by Hades. Also, Persephone did not comeback from her journey through her own methods. Hades, under the order of Zeus allowed her to go back and see Demeter, but not until he made sure she would have to come back. After Hades secretly had her eat a sweet pomegranate seed, Persephone was then in a way chained to the underworld and would have to reenter and remain there for one third of the year. Neither of the women was able to completely control the outcome of their situation. They did not come out of their journeys totally victorious since Persephone would have to go back. Demeter did not actively bring her daughter back from the underworld and Persephone did not fight to come back. Demeter had an influence because her sadness threatened the humans and in turn the Gods causing Zeus to take action and command her daughter’s return. Persephone seemed powerless and vulnerable.

When Odysseus begins to stage his homecoming to Ithaka he takes great care to follow the guidance of Athene and remain in disguise as a beggar. He begins to slowly enter his household first by staying and learning of the situation from the swineherd. Many times throughout his time spent in disguise he tests the faithfulness of not only his servants but his wife as well. Also, he tests the character of the suitors by perceiving their reactions to him. He begs for food under the advice of Athene to see who is generous and receives the torment of the suitors’ words and the objects they throw at him when he speaks his thoughts in their presence. It took much effort for him to endure their hostilities and unjust destruction of his household. Odysseus also entreats the help of others in his plot. Telemachos is the first to learn of his father presence, but also his previous maid Eurykleia and other servants learn of Odysseus as his need for their help arrives. Athene is constantly influencing the situation. She shielded Penelope from seeing the nurse realize it was Odysseus, and even aroused the suitors to make the anger grow even deeper in Odysseus. She also made Penelope appear even more glorious to the suitors and put the idea of the bow contest into her mind. Slowly, Odysseus entered into his household, perceived the loyalties of the inhabitants, and the character of the suitors while plotting their demise.

Upon descending into the Underworld, one of the first spirits that Odysseus sees is that of his mother, Antikleia. More than anything else, we know that the love that Odysseus’s mother has for him is extremely strong and pure – the entire reason they meet in the underworld is that she died pining away for him. She, in many ways, represents one of the ideal women in the epic. She is kind, loving to a fault, and does all she can to tell Odysseus of home. There is a bit of resentment as well – she has given up everything, even life, for him, and so when she first sees him in the underworld, it’s something of a slap in the face for her. She chides him by telling him the story of how she suffered and eventually faded away for his sake – it’s only when he explains his reason for being there that she forgives him. As she then tells Odysseus of how it is that she died, she describes him, saying, “your cleverness and gentle ways”  – the word gentle not being something usually used to describe Odysseus.
After she tells him of how she arrived in the underworld, she becomes something of a messenger. He wants news of Ithaca, and she tells him of his father’s current predicament (he has gone crazy missing his son, and now only sleeps in the woods), and the state of affairs back home with his wife and child. Odysseus is also told that his son holds his lands, but that it is a precarious hold – his house is overrun by guests, and feasts and other such things are being held in his absence. The fact that Odysseus is given this information is very important – it allows him to make plans and suppress his desires so that he can achieve his goal of getting home.
The mother also tells him a little bit about what it is like in the underworld. She describes it as a dream-like place, saying, “the body is made subject to the fire’s strong fury” and that “the soul flitters out like a dream and flies away”. (p174, 221-222) It is the most description Homer gives us of what the Underworld is like for a soul that lives there.
More than anything else, meeting his mother in the underworld is a reminder that things have changed back home, and not always for the better.

In the underworld Odysseus encounters Agamemnon and after he drinks the blood offering he tells Odysseus the story of his death. While away in Troy his wife Klytaimestra cheats on him with his cousin Aegisthos. In secret his “sluttish” wife and her lover plot to kill Agamemnon when he returns. Following out their plan, Aegisthos invites Odysseus to his house to feast and murders him there with Klytaimenestras help. His death is later avenged by his son Arestes. After his story Agamemnon advises Odysseus to return home in secret traveling in the dark and to not divulge the entire story of his accounts. He also warns Odysseus to not trust his wife Penelope saying “do not be to easy even with your wife” and “there is no trusting in women”.

Homer mentions the haze that builds in the sky which indicates to me that Odysseus has not found a place in his own world where the underworld exists but has instead passed into another spiritual world.

The underworld is a strange place. When Homer was describing it, it seems almost like a dream. The rules of a dream world – of lack thereof – seem to apply as well. In the underworld, everything is an extreme – the endless hunger, the endless thirst, forever pushing a bolder up a mountain, having birds of prey peck at your liver for all of eternity. It is not a place that can exist in the real world. It is part of why the journey for Odysseus is so arduous, and why he must do so much to get there. He is not meant to be there, for he is a physical being. It is also why, I think, he sees so much of the structure of the underworld, and so little of the actual place. Just like in dreams, you know the story, but what you see does not always follow.

Homer mentions the haze that builds in the sky which indicates to me that Odysseus has not found a place in his own world where the underworld exists but has instead passed into another spiritual world”.(lpage)

When Homer wrote of Odysseus arriving in the Underworld he explained how the ship came to the “deep-running Ocean” and described how it was “hidden in fog and cloud.” This haze acted like a barrier separating the Underworld. Other descriptions that Homer used to add to the description of this spiritual world included line 15 “nor does Helios, the radiant sun, ever break through the dark, to illuminate them with his shining.” The Underworld, therefore, is portrayed as a spirit world surrounded by rivers, always in darkness or shadow due to the haze, with a diverse landscape. Homer elaborated on the atmosphere by saying in line 19 that “always a glum night is spread over wretched mortals,” but he never fully described the landscape. We are given the impression that the land apparently had a type of soil because Odysseus dug a pit. He, however, was near the shore and therefore we only get glimpses of the rest of the Underworld. The spirits seem to come out of the darkness and following their retreat Odysseus sees Orion in the meadow of asphodel rounding up animals he had killed, Tityos lying in a plain, Tantalos standing in lake water with trees bearing fruit over his head, and Sisyphos on the hill. These features make the Underworld appear like the land where those that are still living reside, but again these are only glimpses Odysseus gets from the outer edge. The inhabitants of the Underworld are not like the living. Those that had passed on needed to drink blood to respond to Odysseus. This ritual of drinking blood was termed by Teiresias to allow them to speak the truth to Odysseus. The spirits were not as they had used to be, but as mentioned in line 219 “the sinews no longer hold the flesh and the bones together, and once the spirit has left the white bones, all the rest of the body is made subject to the fire’s strong fury, but the soul flitters out like a dream and flies away.” So the Underworld is characterized first by the haze and rivers that surround it in darkness. This atmosphere is furthered by Odysseus remaining unknowing about the majority of the world. He saw areas with similar trees and lands, but everything else is kept in mystery. The spirits seem to appear and disappear from and in the darkness and Odysseus is also often fearful of this unknown. The Underworld only resembles his world but is a different spiritual world with unseen unique lands and inhabitants.

The idea of the Underworld is a complex one - in Greek mythology, it seems to have an almost bittersweet feeling. When one thinks of Hades and the Underworld he rules, one generally thinks of barren rock, dripping caves, and black gondolas steered by skeletons wrapped in black cloth. Disney doesn’t help with this impression – anyone who has seen the movie Hercules (a horrible butchering of the tale, yes, but awesome when you’re six or seven) will surely remember the dank, dismal portrayal of the Grecian underworld. (If you have not seen Disney’s version of the Underworld, or want to relive childhood memories, go here and start watching at about 0:57.)

While it is certainly true that the Underworld Homer presents is not exactly the most cheerful of places, it’s not quite as bad as most modern stories seem set on describing as the ‘traditional’ Greek underworld. The place is misty – fog seems to envelope everything – and powerful rivers flow. Circe describes it as the “moldering home of Hades”. However, not all is bad in the Underworld – souls, like “flittering shadows”, roam, some in endless misery, but others wander in rolling pastures of bliss. The Underworld also seems to go forever. It is not part of the physical world, and so there is no sense of containment. The Spirits that reside there seem resigned to their fate, but all of the ones that Odysseus talk to seem to miss being alive. Death is not always a horrible thing, but it is clear that it is not preferable to the joys of life.

The Underworld, unsurprisingly, is not a place that mortals are meant to be, and so humans have a difficult time getting there. Odysseus is sent there by Circe herself, and must perform a great sacrifice of honey and milk, sweet wine, water, barley, and the blood of black rams, with promises of further sacrifices on his return home, before he can talk to the souls of the underworld with any sense of safety. He sees the soul of one of his men and his mother, and hears a prophesy of the seer Teiresias of Theban. Agamemnon tells of the betrayal of his wife, and urges Odysseus not to be too trustful of his own on his return. Then he meets, briefly, the souls of various queens, wives, and mothers of heroes, the ghost of Aias, and sees various mythological figures – Minos, Orion, Tityos, Herkules, and others. The souls of the dead seem to have a weird connection to the living realm – while many that he talks to can tell Odysseus of some of the goings on around the world, they cannot seem to see anything relating to those that they love.

After much talk and the shedding of many tears, it is clear that Odysseus has obtained the knowledge that he journeyed to the Underworld to gain. And so he departs, completing his katabasis, to attempt, yet again, to make his way home.