Job has no agency, no participation in God's decision to make him the object of a wager. God does not give him the option to decline and he is presented with no opportunity in which he might refuse God outright. He has no control over the duration or intensity of his suffering. He is completely at the mercy of God.

There is nothing to give an indication of how much agency Job had before the wager. However the arguments Job makes in chapter three through thirty-seven suggest some agency, especially in his questioning of God: "Does it seem good to thee to oppress, to despise the work of thy hands and favor the designs of the wi

Because of Polyphemos' curse, Odysseus could no longer maintain his agency using his skills as a battle chief. We saw in the Trojan War how Odysseus used his cleverness to outsmart the Trojans and then his fighting skills to take their lives. This technique of using his prowess as a means of preserving his agency collapsed under pressure from Poseidon. In book five, as he was on his way home from Kalypso's island, Poseidon sent a massive hurricane against him. For all his strength, power, and skill, Odysseus was powerless to stop the storm or even save himself. His agency was overcome by Poseidon's will.

The stories of Job and Odysseus tell a similar tale of agency and the gods. Both have their agency greatly reduced as a result of a god's wish. Job can do nothing more than speak, which, though it is not a substantial amount of agency, it is greater than that of Odysseus: his once valued words are now useless to him. Neither Job nor Odysseus are able to control the length or intensity of their suffering. Job suffers until the wager is fulfilled, with no way to ease or stop the pain. Odysseus endures his hardships and strife until Poseidon is appeased. The most prominent similarity is that they both experience a loss of agency because of a god.

Poseidon took away Odysseus' use of words as a means of expressing his agency. Teiresias instructs Odysseus to distance his men from Helios' cattle. Odysseus uses words as an attempt to persuade them to bypass the island completely: "Shipmates...I had forewarning from Teiresias and Kirke, too; both told me I must shun this island of the Sun, the world's delight. Nothing but fatal trouble shall we find here" (book XII, lines 350-354). He again tries to assert some of his agency on the crew with words when he commands his men to swear to him they will not eat the cattle. In the past, this verbal control would have been enough to ensure his agency and preservation. The fact that it fails in these two incidents is an indication of Poseidon's influence on Odysseus' loss of agency.

Job has, if this is possible, an even lesser degree of agency after Satan afflicts him with sores. Before this, though he suffered great loss, he still maintained the ability to direct himself by means of his physical body. Now however, God, by placing Job in Satan's power, removes that part of his agency. He is too miserable to move and because of this, he has no choice but

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Approximate Word count = 1640
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)