In this image, I see men being dragged away by a tall, strong man dressed in armor. I presume this man to be Odysseus. Although the image is in black and white, I can tell that the man is Odysseus due to his tall, muscular fame. His arms are outstretched, with his right hand holding one man by the hair, and his left hand holding two men by their hair. This demonstrates the brute strength of Odysseus, as he is strong enough to drag three men solely by their hair.  These men were the scout team that Odysseus sent to check out the island and its inhabitants. The men appear as if they are in agony; they are being taken back by their leader against their will. They want to stay behind. Although Odysseus’ face is turned away from the audience, it appears as if he is scolding the man on his left. This causes the man on the left to almost look ashamed of his lack of motivation. The image shows Odysseus and the scout team on the beach, meaning they had reached the boats, which appear in the foreground on the right, and the background on the left. At the feet of Odysseus and the scout team lay peels; presumably from the lotus fruit that the scout team had previously been consuming.

            The image backs up the research and multiple readings of the passage. The passage describes how Odysseus forcefully drags the scout team back to the beach to enter the ships, and the image displays the same thing. The image does further my understanding of the passage, however. It was difficult to imagine how a singular man could drag three struggling soldiers a somewhat far distance, but the imagine clarified how Odysseus accomplished this by demonstrating his bullish strength.

            Neither the image nor the passage gives the audience any insight on the thoughts of the scout team, specifically the slave, under the influence of the lotus fruit. While the passage does state how the scout team “wanted only to stay there…” and “had forgotten home” (Wilson 243), the audience is not allowed insight into the thoughts and feelings of these men. The soldiers obviously had reason to return home; they were war heroes and most likely had families back home. However, the slave, presumably, did not share the same future as the men he was entitled to. Upon a return home, the slave would be forced back into the life he had always known, one lacking freedom and choice. Encountering the Lotus-Eaters was pure bliss for this slave, and the best thing that could have happened to him. The slave already had no reason to return home; there was nothing there waiting for him. But now, he had found a group of people who accepted him regardless of his skin color. Then, Odysseus came along and dragged him away from his possible future filled with freedom. Odysseus dragging the slave away represents the larger idea of slavery as a whole. For centuries, white people enslaved people of color, preventing them from living out their natural rights as human beings. The slave is visible in the illustration; the man directly to the right of Odysseus appears to have a shackle around his thigh and neck, representing how enslaved people were tied down by their unrightful ‘owners’. However, as stated earlier, the slave is a very minor part of this short passage, only mentioned once in the text, and barely distinguished in the illustration. Slavery is absolutely the worst crime mentioned in The Odyssey, yet without an in-depth analysis of the text and illustration, it is easy to turn a blind eye to the massive issue.