Circe: Foil 2 key examples

Telemachus and Circe are drawn to one another in part because they both have difficult relationships with their fathers. Odysseus abandoned Telemachus when he was only a year old. Circe's abandonment by Helios has been less straightforward but no less real: he treated her as a disappointment until finally, when she revealed the power she hoped would make him respect her, he banished her. The most difficult challenge of both their lives is dealing with their anger toward the fathers that made them feel unwanted and unimportant.

At the same time, Circe knows a side of Odysseus that Telemachus never got to meet. She knows that in a roundabout way, Odysseus abandoned Telemachus to protect him. She knows that for all of Odysseus's mistakes, he felt true sorrow over the lives of the men he lost throughout his journey home. Telemachus thinks that an apology after the fact, once he has joined Odysseus in death, is too little too late. Circe does not disagree, but Telemachus's flip rejection makes her realize how much she would prize such an apology from Helios. She knows that she will never get it. She and Helios are immortal, so they will never meet in the afterlife. Without death to force him to reflect, Helios is far too proud and careless about the impact of his actions to take accountability for the harm he has caused others. Without minimizing Telemachus's anger toward Odysseus, Circe takes this moment to reflect on what she deserves from her absent father, even though she doesn't dare to hope for it.

By making Odysseus, Telemachus, and even Penelope into foils for Circe, Miller adds depth to the novel's commentary on family systems and cycles of violence. Circe is both a single mother and an abandoned child, but she also has a great deal in common with the man who abandoned both Penelope and Telemachus. The way she is drawn into their family helps Circe better understand her own role in perpetuating familial cycles of violence and abandonment. This understanding is instrumental to some of her most important decisions. It helps her to let Telegonus lead the life he wants. It helps her relinquish the immortality that her father once taught her was her one worthwhile quality. It even helps her embrace a life with Telemachus. No matter what their fathers did to them, she realizes that she and Telemachus do not have to abandon each other.

Not only is homecoming a major theme in The Odyssey, but also Odysseus and Penelope's marriage bed is a major symbol of the home that awaits Odysseus at the end of his journey—no matter how long it takes him. Odysseus carved one of the bed posts out of the trunk of a standing olive tree, so that his and Penelope's house would be built around the immovable centerpiece of their bed. It symbolizes how steadfast their marriage is, even through Odysseus's decades-long absence from home (and multiple extra-marital affairs).

Circe's return to her "wide, gold bed" is an allusion to Odysseus's marriage bed. Like Odysseus, Circe spends what seems like forever trying to find her way home. Neither of them knows exactly what their home will look like when they find it, but they struggle on toward it nonetheless and make plenty of mistakes along the way. Both of them hurt people and worry about their sons. At last in this chapter, Circe returns to Aiaia and feels like she is home. As she climbs into her own bed, she even takes Odysseus's place as the third member of Penelope and Telemachus's family.

While the mention of Circe's bed helps draw a parallel between her homecoming and Odysseus's homecoming, it also draws a contrast between the two characters, their desires, and their choices. Circe's bed is not as comforting to her as it first seems, and not nearly as comforting as Odysseus's bed is to him. Gold and covered in sheets that are "ever fresh," it is a bed only a god could have. It never bears a trace of having been slept in, so it feels no different climbing into it after a long absence than after centuries of successive nights in it. Her bed reminds her of her immortal disconnection from all of the life on her island. Plants, animals, Penelope, and Telemachus will die one day, and Circe will still be here sleeping on the same sheets, "fresh as they ever were."

Circe distinguishes herself from Odysseus when she chooses to relinquish her immortality in favor of a more ordinary, mortal life. Whereas Odysseus spends his life seeking immortal glory and taking his ordinary bed at home for granted, Circe decides she would rather not miss the glory of ordinary life itself. She chooses a short lifetime of sheets that need changing over an unlimited future of mythical feats. Consequently, she lives out her days in happy obscurity. Odysseus, on the other hand, spends the last years of his life paranoid, violent, and too obsessed with his own glory to enjoy his home.