Warning: this article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

In Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Odysseus (played by Matt Damon) is lost not only at sea, but within his own memories. On the island of the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), eating lotus flowers offers him relief from the trauma of Troy, allowing him to forget the war, his comrades – and eventually even his wife and son.

While it’s a point of focus in Nolan’s film, the episode of the so-called “Lotus eaters” is, in the scheme of Homer’s Odyssey, very minor. Occupying scarcely more than 20 lines of verse in a poem of over 12,000, the story of the magical, memory-wiping fruit is no more than an unfortunate escapade.

The cyclops, in the economy of the poem, is far more significant. The famous trick, by which Odysseus makes the cyclops believe he is called “Nobody”, rendering the creature’s cries for help useless (“Nobody is attacking me!”), encourages Odysseus, at a safe distance, to reveal his name. The cyclops’ subsequent curse becomes a major motive force for the rest of the poem.

Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of the Odyssey has reversed this. Although the cyclops still represents the clash of........

© The Conversation