English Literature

The plight of a man long separated from his home and loved ones is one told and retold in myriad ways, genres, and media. The appeal of such a plot is understandable the inherent dramatic value in the yearning for the lost and of the lost, and the sheer joy of long-awaited reunion. That, of course, is a much too one-dimensional view of such a volatile situation. There is so much more to a homecoming story than what the man did while he was away from home or how he manages to get home. In fact, entire complex stories can be built that begin from the moment the lost return. Years away can change the man many an ex war veteran has found it hard to adjust to the kind of life he fought hard and lost much to protect. Years away can change the people the man left behind many a retired overseas worker has found it hard to assert dominance in a home that learned to run fine without him. Is the war veteran no longer the man who went off to war, or the overseas worker the head of his household This dimension of the homecoming story is where the identity of the man returned is questioned, an identity established not only by the man himself but also by those around him. In this context we study the homecomings of Odysseus, who hides his identity Arnaud du Tilh, who uses anothers identity and Martin Guerre, whose identity is stolen.

First we establish the mindsets and emotions of the three prior to their homecomings. Of the three, Odysseus is the one whose yearning for home is fully established. Despite ample opportunity to live happily and even be immortal with a goddess, the hero of one of the greatest wars ever told is portrayed as a broken-hearted man crying for want of his country and his Penelope. Though the Trojan War was longer than any of them expected, the 9 years it took to end that battle was less than the 11 more it took him to return from it. He faced deadly obstacles one after the other where other men would have just given up, that was how badly he wanted to get home. Martin Guerre on the other hand did not regretfully leave his family to fight in the war like Odysseus he only actually joined the army after he had run away from his wife and child, he abandoned them. Martins marriage to Bertrande was very early according to todays standards, it was also rather forced, so its no stretch of the imagination to think he was unhappy and did not yearn for his family much since he left them willingly in the first place. Why he even came back at all is a great mystery, especially considering the critical moment of his reappearance. Still, it is possible that the time apart altered his feelings. Its possible that war and prison made him finally value his family, since it was his reminiscences that made Arnaud du Tilh decide to steal his life. Would he talk about intimate details about his wife if he did not, somehow, miss her Arnaud wanted that life, and how Martin talked about it could have caused that.

What sweet images Martins stories could have evoked may have been realized too as Arnaud du Tilh received the romantic heros welcome the villagers cheered, his wife fell to her knees to tearfully embrace him. His acceptance was immediate and dramatic too bad the joy and tears were not really for him. He alters the identity of Martin though, becoming generous where he was greedy, sweet and loving where he was aloof and disinterested. Everyone attributes this to the change brought by hard times and age, and that seems like a good excuse for an impostor to live a good life. Yet considering again the possibility that the real Martin had a change of heart at the prison, a man who loved and missed his family may have just been the Martin that Arnaud saw and ended up emulating. Of course, the opposite is also possible, as Arnaud might have seen a man who neither deserved nor appreciated that life and thought himself able to make better use of it.

Now the initial homecoming of Odysseus was rather the opposite of that of Arnaud. He delayed his own grand homecoming out of necessity and cunning. Where declaring his identity allowed Arnaud to receive everything that belonged to another man, conversely, concealing his was the best way that Odysseus could fully recover his property. With the help of Athena, Odysseus took on the identity of a begging wanderer and thus suffered abuse several times in his own home, from the very people he hated. He endured all this and stayed true to his part though, as he knew that to obtain the full revenge that he wanted, he needed to get inside the house and set everything exactly the way they needed to be. So even though both aimed for the same ends, Arnaud du Tilh the stranger took the role of the long-lost father and husband, while Odysseus the lord of the house took the role of the unwanted stranger.

It was only after these faux identities were firmly in place that the identities of both Arnaud and Odysseus were questioned and one way or another denied. Arnaud du Tilh had lived three peaceful and happy years as Martin Guerre before he was accused of being an impostor. This accusation shallowly enough came after a disagreement about money with his uncle. It needs to be noted though that this was not the first time that people have had this doubt despite the excuse of being changed by age and hardships, it was just the first time this doubt was so publicly aired. The many drastic changes to Martins character had those around him wondering about his authenticity even soon after he arrived. Its just possible that these were such good changes that no one said anything, they wanted to believe he was Martin Guerre. Even when the two tramps claimed that he was actually a man from another village and that the real Martin Guerre had a wooden leg, or when the cobbler noticed what should have been an obvious detail of his foot size changing no one paid these any mind. Now, while he also had moments of being shifty-eyed and suspicious and these could be seen as evidence of his guilt, these were also characteristics attributed to the original Martin Guerre, both strengthening and weakening his claims it was all rather confusing.

For Odysseus though, the initial repeated denials of his identity since his return to Ithaca were all made by himself. He was so clever that his made-up characters never faltered enough for anyone to suspect he was lying. He was a man who loved his wife dearly and wanted for so long to be with her again, but he suppressed that part of him so well that he told her to wait until sundown before he would see her and neither did he try to talk her when she showed herself to them in all her god-enhanced beauty. He also weaved such detailed backgrounds and stories for each character that his audience did not have much choice but to believe him. Only his old nurse found him out though, but this was because of a telltale physical mark, and no fault of his she was of course easily hushed. The nurse most probably understood, since she had known him for so long, that he had his reasons for doing the things he did and he was capable enough to see them to their conclusions.

The denial of his identity that he could not control though, and one that was rather unexpected to him, was the denial of his beloved Penelope. Penelope was conflicted between rushing to him and staying aloof, she was cautious of the tricks of the gods and evil men. She had waited for him to come back for so long, and had done so many things just to delay dealing with the wooers who drained their wealth ever day she waited until one day there would be none left for her son. She had come to the point where she had no other recourse but to give in, and after years of sorrow she coped with this by simply believing Odysseus was dead. She was so convinced that he was never to return, and it might have been that the thought of him dead was easier than that of him suffering where she could never console him, and was also an easier thought than that he had simply abandoned them. Odysseus being as intelligent as he was no doubt understood all this because he told Telemachus to give her time to be convinced and he, time to convince her. Later though, he did let her know that he was her somewhat hurt by her denial by repeating the words of Telemachus and calling her hard-hearted.

The situation Bertrande found herself in when faced with a man who could or could not be her husband was more complicated than Penelopes though, and she could not afford to simply deny him outright. She was a woman in a time when women had little to no rights, she had a child that had grown up fatherless, and she was not allowed to remarry. A husband, even though he was possibly not her real husband, meant protection, security and many other things. When she first saw Arnaud, whether she was thoroughly convinced that the man in front of her was truly her husband or not, there were still societal factors she needed to consider. Now, the denial of the real Martin Guerres identity did not come from Bertrande, although she did so indirectly by swearing that Arnaud was the real Martin. The real Martin Guerres identity was not so much denied as questioned, as his and Arnaud du Tilhs claims to his identity were tested in court.

This contest was brief though as Bertrande changed her testimony and identified the wooden-legged Martin Guerre as her real husband. With the establishment of the identity of the wooden-legged Martin Guerre, it was effectively denied to Arnaud. His confession that followed was then only the establishment of his own true identity as Arnaud du Tilh before he was executed. The identity of Martin Guerre was tried in court, thus the aim of it was not to convince his loved ones of who he was since they had already accepted him, but to convince the people and the law.

The identity of Odysseus on the other hand was established to the people not by some trial, but by battle. He was a hero known far and wide for his deeds in war, so how he fared in a fight was a better proof of his identity than any explanation he could have given them. The people who were close to him though, were of course harder to convince, and he needed to show them tokens to prove is claims. Now Telemachus was only a child when his father left for Troy and they had no identifying tokens between them. Maybe because he was young, or because he was a vital piece in Odysseus and Athenas plan, he was the first and the fastest to know the beggars true identity. To the swineherd and the neatherd Odysseus showed the same scar that convinced the nurse. To his father Laertes he not only showed the scar as a token but recited all the trees that his father had promised him when he was a child. Now to Penelope, the most sceptical, he described in detail the bed that they had shared and that he built himself to be immobile after she subtly suggested that the bed was moved outside their bridal chamber to test him. Because no other person except her, him, and one handmaiden knew the features of that bed, this finally convinced her.

For both The Odyssey and The Return of Martin Guerre, people established the identities of the main characters based on the memories they had of them. For a man who had been away for a long time, who he is to people, is what they remember of him. The problem with memory is that in reality it can be rather faulty as the confusing testimonies at the Martin Guerre trial show. Another problem with memory is that it can be relayed, and people can just as easily adopt anothers as their own this was what Arnaud did, and this was somewhat what Penelope was wary of. One rather innocent example is having a treasured childhood memory, only to one day realize it was a scene from an old movie. And though whats remembered of a person may be different, people can change, and having the same shared memories can be rather convincing proof. Odysseus was smart enough to choose tokens that were hard to replicate, his scar was decades old and the trees he recited were from a very old private conversation. Unfortunately for Arnaud, no matter what proofs he produced, he could not deny the largest argument against him, standing in the courtroom with a wooden leg. Today, forensics has mostly eradicated the chance of identity theft for would-be Arnaud du Tilhs. People can talk themselves blue, but if the scientific evidence does not match, they are not who they say they are. Opening the mind to the fantastic though, one can ask oneself Do I know my loved ones well enough, that if a person becomes wholly unrecognizable (say the mind was transferred to another body) I could still recognize himher Is it then, still the same person or does the tangible body define identity and not the mind and memories Its something to think about.