Editor's Choice
What effect did the Lotus plant have in The Odyssey?
Quick answer:
In "The Odyssey," the Lotus plant causes Odysseus's crew to lose their desire to return home by erasing their memories and ambitions. After consuming the plant, the men wish to stay with the Lotus-eaters indefinitely, forgetting their mission. Odysseus must forcibly bring them back to the ship, demonstrating his leadership and commitment to returning to Ithaca despite the seductive allure of the Lotus plant's effects.
Odysseus exercises caution when his ships arrive in the Land of the Lotus Eaters, and he sends only three men to go and scout out the land and the locals. (He's wary of another ambush like the one they experienced in Ismarus.) When the Lotus Eaters offer these crewmen their food, the lotus flower, they completely lose their desire to return home to Ithaca, and they resist Odysseus when he tries to take them back to the ship. Odysseus actually has to physically overpower them and muscle them back, then tie them up on board so that they do not try to escape.
This is a time when we get to see Odysseus's leadership skills. Although it would probably be easier to walk away and allow these men to languish in a drug-addled, if pleasant, stupor, Odysseus cares about them and knows how badly they do, in their heart of...
Unlock
This Answer NowStart your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
hearts, want to go home. They have been away, like him, for ten years—as they all fought in the Trojan War together. Their families are waiting for them and counting on them to return. Instead of viewing his crewmen as dispensable, Odysseus treats them as his equals.
In Homer's Odyssey, what effect did the lotus plant have?
In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, the effect of the lotus plant is described in Book IX, in which Odysseus (or Ulysses) guides King Alcinous through his adventures during his ten year journey home. Arriving at the island of the Lotus-eaters, “who did them no hurt,” after being blown seriously off-course by North winds generated by Zeus (or Jove), Odysseus’s men are fed the lotus plant and rendered incapable of memory and, consequently, of their otherwise intense determination to return home. As Homer/Odysseus describes the scene:
“[The Lotus-eaters] gave them [Odysseus’s crew] to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who at it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches.”
The effect of the lotus plant, then, is that it causes those who consume it to lose their memories and any desire to depart the island of the Lotus-eaters, remaining forever captive to its taste and potentially hallucinatory effects. Its consumption by his crew threatened Odysseus’s ability to return to Ithaca and to his wife Penelope and now-grown son Telemachus.
What effect does the Lotus plant have in Homer's The Odyssey?
In Odyssey 9, the title character tells his Phaeacian hosts about his adventures after leaving Troy. One of the places he and his crew stop is the land of the Lotus-eaters.
In keeping with the theme of hospitality (Greek: xenia) that permeates the Odyssey, Odysseus' crew discover that the inhabitants of this land are very friendly and, like good hosts, they offer some of Odysseus' crew food. Unfortunately, the food they are given is the lotus, which makes Odysseus' men no longer wish "to bring back word to us, or sail for home" (A.S. Kline translation).
This remark points toward another major theme in the Odyssey, namely "return" (Greek: nostos). Odysseus' men forget all about nostos. Odysseus, however, has not forgotten about his desire to return home; he goes ashore and drags his lotus-eating crewmembers back to the ship, where he puts them in bonds.
References