Odysseus of Ithaca

Stanislaw Lem, 1971

short_story

Quadrant Scores

Time Structure
LinearFractured
Pacing
Action-DrivenObservational
Threat Scale
IndividualSystemic
Protagonist Fate
VictoryAssimilation
Conflict Style
Western CombatKishōtenketsu
Price Type
PhysicalIdeological
Todorov's Stages
equilibrium
Description of the starting status quo.
disruption
The inciting incident or protocol failure.
recognition
When the protagonist realizes the disruption.
repair
The attempt to fix or survive it.
new equilibrium
The new, altered status quo.

Structural Analysis

1. Protocol Fiction Mapping (Summer of Protocols)#

  • Render a Rule:
  • Rehearse a Failure Mode:
  • Reveal a Human Insight:

2. Actantial Model (A.J. Greimas)#

  • Subject:
  • Object:
  • Sender (Destinator):
  • Receiver (Destinatee):
  • Helper:
  • Opponent:

3. Todorov's Equilibrium Model#

  • See YAML Frontmatter for stage breakdown.

4. The Freytag Pyramid#

  • Exposition:
  • Climax:

5. Propp's Morphology of the Folktale#

  • Applicable Narratemes:

6. Genette's Narrative Discourse#

  • Order / Duration / Focalization:

7. The Monomyth / Hero's Journey#

  • Subversions:

8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle#

  • The Take (The Price Paid):

9. Save the Cat! Beat Sheet#

  • Pacing Deviations:

10. Kishōtenketsu (Four-Act Structure)#

  • Applicability:

11. The Three-Act Structure#

  • Plot Points:

12. Lévi-Strauss's Binary Oppositions#

  • Primary Binary:
  • Secondary Binary:
  • The Mediator:

13. Cognitive Estrangement (Suvin / Shklovsky)#

  • The Familiar Concept:
  • The Estranging Mechanism:
  • The Cognitive Shift:

14. Bakhtin's Chronotope#

  • The Spatial Matrix:
  • The Temporal Flow:
  • The Point of Intersection:

15. Aristotelian Poetics#

  • Hamartia:
  • Peripeteia:
  • Anagnorisis:

16. Jungian Archetypal Analysis#

  • The Persona:
  • The Shadow:
  • The Anima/Animus:
  • The Trickster:

17. Genette's Transtextuality#

  • Intertextuality:
  • Paratextuality:
  • Metatextuality:

Characters9

Kuno MlatjeFictional Author

The author of the novel 'Odysseus of Ithaca'.

Homer Maria OdysseusProtagonist

The hero of the novel who bites a professor's ear to gain notoriety, then founds the 'Quest for the Fleece of the Spirit' to locate the lost works of unrecognized first-order geniuses.

Homer M. OdysseusOdysseus of Ithaca
Professor Evelyn G. HutchinsonVictim/Catalyst

A member of the Science Council of the Rockefeller Foundation whose car is burned and ear is bitten by Odysseus after ignoring Odysseus's brochure.

Prof. E. G. Hutchinson
The ForgerExplorer and Fraudster

An unrecognized author who infiltrates the expedition and forges a 17th-century manuscript on the parageometric structure of Being to get his own concepts published.

Mameluke Kardyoch
Hans ZokkerCorrupt Explorer

An explorer for the Quest who discovers valuable documents in Montenegro, auctions them off secretly, and absconds to Chile with the money.

Miral Essos of BoeotiaHistorical Genius

A 15th-century genius whose works included a system of logic based on frog spinal columns, trivalent logic, and early genetic theories.

Bauber the CatalonianHistorical Genius

An author burned alive at the stake for formulating a formal-logical proof that a rational theodicy is impossible.

Eminent mathematicianExpert Consultant

One of the two eminent mathematicians who analyzes the cryptic Florentine manuscript and realizes it proposes an entirely different foundation of mathematics.

The NarratorLiterary Critic

The first-person voice reviewing and recommending Kuno Mlatje's book.

The Reviewer