Elizabeth Dean: "The Odyssey" in Relation to Pilgrimage, and Wilderness as a Sacred Landscape

The Odyssey in Relation to Wilderness as a Sacred Landscape.
While The Odyssey is an epic poem about a hero, seemingly having nothing to do with sacred place, and wilderness it, in actuality correlates to our class, and our understanding of a pligrimage. We understand a pilgriamge, most basically as a journey to a certain location, in an effort to recieve some sort of religious or spirtual liberation, among other recieved characteristcs. in The Odyssey, Odysseus is try to get home after the trojan war, and faces many trials and tribulations, and distractions that keep him from getting home. I think this can be seen as a pilgrimge, because he is trying to get home, and home is sacred to him. Upon returning home he will experience final relivation from all of his obstacles, and will finally be reuinted with his family, and at peace. Like any pilgrimage, the journey is where the stress is put. In various types of pilgrimages it is about the self-discovery, and spiritual discovery one encounters on the journey, that leads to ultimate salvation, and purification and whatever other rewards upon reaching the final location. There additionally is usually a sort of obstacle-either personal or tangible that adds an element of difficulty to the journey, to make the end result mean that much more. This is what happens with Odysseus' journey.He faces obstacles, and has to problem solve, and deal with all tyes of characters in order to recieve his final prize of getting home. Finally reaching h0me is so much more important, and means so much more becasue he had to go through so much to get there.