Tantalus
Tantalus
In a Nutshell
It seems like all of us can relate in some way to Tantalus. Sure, the T-man is a notorious criminal. Yeah, most of us aren't guilty of the kind of crimes he's accused of i.e. like cooking up his own child and trying to feed him to the gods. However, when Tantalus is condemned to the darkest pit of the Underworld, to be forever tortured by fruit and water he can't quite reach, he becomes a bit like all the rest of us, right?
Of course, we're not all tortured in quite the same way as the Tantalized One (guess where that word came from?). But we all are constantly tempted by things we can't quite reach. What human being isn't trying to grasp for something that they can't quite reach? Even the most unmotivated of people are almost always longing for something they may not ever lay their hands on. (Even if it's that potato chip that fell a little too far from the couch or a Nobel Prize in Shmooping.)
So it seems to us that even though Tantalus is guilty of crimes most of us would never even dream of committing, there's still something about his eternal plight that makes him relatable to pretty much everybody on earth. This is that crumby Human Condition thing you hear so much about.
Shmoop Connections
Explore the ways this myth connects with the world and with other topics on Shmoop
In the awesome poem "Yet do I Marvel" by the awesome poet Countee Cullen, Tantalus's not-so-awesome fate gets a shout-out.When Odysseus swings by the Underworld on his long voyage home, in Homer's Odyssey, he sees Tantalus and the others inmates of Tartarus.
Tantalus's crimes put a curse on his family for generations. Check out some of the awfulness in Aeschylus's tragedy, Agamemnon, the first play in his Oresteia trilogy.
The curse on Tantalus's family continues to cause all kinds of problems in the Libation Bearers, the second play in Aeschylus's Oresteia.
Get the skinny on the Tantalus's cursed descendants from a different angle in Electra by Sophocles.
Aeschylus's Oresteia gets yet another spin in The Flies by famous French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre.