How Does Hercules Build Tension In The Odyssey

In book eleven of the Odyssey, Odysseus travels to the realms of the dead where he encounters many ghosts, including a vision of Hercules. This brief moment portrays the tension between the ghosts--anguishing in Hades’ underworld--and Hercules who had the fortune to live with the gods on Mount Olympus in his afterlife. The tension Odysseus witnesses represents the polarity between heaven--symbolized by Hercules--and hell--symbolized by the ghosts. Death is a frequent motif throughout The Odyssey and by negatively portraying it, especially in comparison to Hercules’ afterlife with the gods, Homer shows why characters such as Odysseus struggle so valiantly to avoid it. Chapman’s translation of the Odyssey best captures this friction because he actively describes the ghosts, uses diction that emphasizes the struggle between heaven and hell, and chooses a meter that highlights this struggle.
Fitzgerald writes that Hercules “loomed with naked bow” (724) while Butler depicts Hercules as “glaring around” (Butler). While Fitzgerald and Butler do show Hercules’ anger, their vaguer language creates ambiguity in regards to the subject of that anger. On the other hand, Chapman specifically describes that Hercules is “hurling round his frown/ At those vex’d hoverers, aiming at them still” (829-830). Chapman’s precise diction clearly portrays an antagonistic relationship between Hercules and the ghosts. His choice of the word “hoverers” demonstrates that the ghosts are the object of Hercules’ malice. Fitzgerald and Butler’s translations depict this animosity in a more nuanced way, leaving it up to the reader to deduce the conflict. Chapman’s clarity allows the readers to see the jealousy the ghosts harbor for Hercules which further characterizes death in a negative