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Muhammad Raza
Michael Skafidas
CMLIT 101W
09 November 2017
The importance of Ithaca
What is Ithaca? Why Ithaca plays an influential role in Odysseus by Homer and how
modern authors have defined Ithaca in their literary works. In order to answer all these
mysterious questions we must dive deep down to find out the meaning of Ithaca. According to
the book Odysseus by Homer Ithaca is the hometown of the Odysseus and the love of returning
to Ithaca keeps him alive and motivated throughout the journey. Even though he faces different
hurdles throughout his journey but he has a strong urge of returning back to his hometown.
Odysseus is exiled from his hometown for long time as he was involved in a trojan war but when
the trojan war was over he wanted to return back to his hometown. As he was exiled from his
hometown where he was born. He wanted to return to his wife. Thus he was willing to face every
obstacles in order to get back to his hometown. This shows that Ithaca is not just Odysseus’s
hometown but for him it's more like a goal that he has to achieve it is something that is making
him go through every obstacle to achieve this goal. Ithaca has different meanings ,every person
has a different Ithaca and just like odysseus's Ithaca was returning back to his hometown after he
spent most of his time in exile.The famous Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy describes the
meaning of Ithaca in his poem Ithaca. He describes the Ithaca as the depiction of one’s
destination in his life. As he claims that once we make up our mind and set our destination in
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life then no obstacles or hurdles can defeat us on our journey. Therefore, a question comes up
that when everyone sets a goal in their life whether it is big or small but does he remains
persistent and determined throughout the journey while facing hurdles because that's the thing
that matters a lot throughout the journey Because facing hurdles and obstacles makes us stronger...
