Symbols

Birds: In chapter 22 Homer compares Odysseus, Telemachos, the Swineherder, and the drover to vultures. He says that they can't run and hide, because Odysseus and the other three will hunt them down and find them and kill them. Athena is also a bird when she is watching over and helping Odysseus while they are fighting. Penelopia sees an eagle eating the geese; the geese representing the lonliness during the time Odysseus was gone, and the eagle representing that she was better because he had returned.

Wounds: Odysseus's wound keeps appearing as a sense of identity. The nanny sees his scar from the boar when she is clensing him, and realizes that it's Odysseus. He also uses it to prove to the swineherder, dover, and his father that it's him.

Hades: After the battle at his house, Odysseus goes back to Hades and sees all the men that were killed at his home. He realizes that all the men down there were men that weren't loyal to Odysseus, and that all the men above are the ones that are truley loyal to him. He also learns how everyone's disloyalty towards Agememnon was the cause of his death.