{"id":1161,"date":"2026-07-22T14:38:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/22\/what-the-lotus-flower-reveals-about-veteran-ptsd-in-christopher-nolans-the-odyssey\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:38:40","slug":"what-the-lotus-flower-reveals-about-veteran-ptsd-in-christopher-nolans-the-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/22\/what-the-lotus-flower-reveals-about-veteran-ptsd-in-christopher-nolans-the-odyssey\/","title":{"rendered":"What the lotus flower reveals about veteran PTSD in Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Christopher Nolan\u2019s 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 \u2013 and eventually even his wife and son.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s a point of focus in Nolan\u2019s film, the episode of the so-called \u201cLotus eaters\u201d is, in the scheme of Homer\u2019s Odyssey<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

The cyclops, in the economy of the poem, is far more significant. The famous trick, by which Odysseus<\/a> makes the cyclops believe he is called \u201cNobody\u201d, rendering the creature\u2019s cries for help useless (\u201cNobody is attacking me!\u201d), encourages Odysseus, at a safe distance, to reveal his name. The cyclops\u2019 subsequent curse becomes a major motive force for the rest of the poem.<\/p>\n

Christopher Nolan\u2019s new film adaptation of the Odyssey has reversed this. Although the cyclops still represents the clash of civilisation and brutishness, the episode in the film is relegated to a symptom of a wider problem. <\/p>\n

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\n Can we map The Odyssey? How ancient geographers and modern researchers have traced Odysseus\u2019s travels<\/a>
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When finally reunited with his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), Odysseus confesses his guilt over the destruction of Troy. To trick a people into accepting a gift \u2013 the Trojan horse \u2013 which spells their doom, in the name of the goddess Athena, is to violate the divine sanctions that keep human behaviour decent. If the cyclops does not know \u201cthe laws of Zeus\u201d (in Greek, xenia<\/em>: the bonds of behaviour<\/a> between guest and host), what of it? The Trojan war has collapsed any meaning these notions once had anyway.<\/p>\n

The trailer for The Odyssey.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Into the gap steps the lotus \u2013 in Nolan\u2019s film it\u2019s a flower, and not a fruit as in Homer\u2019s poem. In Nolan\u2019s film, the magic flower is used by Calypso to purge Odysseus\u2019 trauma. What she unleashes is, however, a crippling addiction. Only through painstaking narrative can Odysseus slowly piece together the memory of his men, and only by touching an artefact from his past can his memory of his wife be restored. The whole first half of the film, then, is a lotus-induced dream.<\/p>\n

The traumatic Odyssey<\/h2>\n

How are we to handle memories we do not like? If you could remove them, would you? For many, memories are so painful that chemical remedies are sought. <\/p>\n

Among UK veterans of combat, 11% have reported alcohol misuse problems<\/a>. In the US, some million veterans<\/a> suffer from addictions to alcohol or drugs.<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s Odysseus is a commentary on this. Confronted with a world he has played a pivotal role in destroying, Odysseus loses himself in lotus addiction. Calypso\u2019s motives are left tantalisingly ambiguous. Part nursemaid, part temptress (but somewhat sexless in comparison with Homer\u2019s version), she regulates the supply of the drug she has introduced him to (we see her both encourage and forbid the use of lotus).<\/p>\n

Both forgetting and memory have their pitfalls. Neither the bitterness of dwelling on a lost past, nor the blanking out of suffering, are the same as healing. In Homer\u2019s Odyssey, a pivotal moment features Odysseus listening to a singer tell the story of the Trojan war at a banquet. It\u2019s the only time Homer actually mentions the notorious wooden horse. Much is made of Odysseus\u2019 response: he covers his face and he weeps<\/a>. The song of the Sirens too introduces Odysseus to pain and regret, to memory both lost and betrayed.<\/p>\n

In the film, unlike the poem, narrative therapy<\/a> \u2013 the telling of the tale \u2013 does not suffice. The solution is rather the rediscovery of powerlessness \u2013 of a small human\u2019s place in a vast world. Nolan\u2019s Odysseus is a figure of controlling power, whether successfully, in the case of the attack on the Cyclops, or unsuccessfully, as Circe (Samantha Morton) implies when his men raid her home. Research has found that surf therapy<\/a> can help veterans suffering with PTSD. In a similar way, Odysseus\u2019s trauma is healed by understanding, and yielding to, what he cannot control after all.<\/p>\n

Odysseus is described by Homer in the first line of the poem as polutropos<\/em>: \u201cof many turns\u201d, \u201ccomplicated\u201d<\/a>, \u201cresourceful\u201d \u2013 the word is notoriously untranslatable. Whatever this means, in Nolan\u2019s imagination, Odysseus is not a warrior. He is a culture hero \u2013 a figure who changes the world \u2013 and it is responsibility for the downfall of a culture which has marked him with trauma.<\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Ben Cartlidge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey. In Christopher Nolan\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}