Abstract: In their book, Dialectics of Enlightenment, written during the Second World War in their exile in the U.S., Adorno and Horkheimer portray Ulysses in the Odyssey as the exemplary Western figure. Focusing on an event that occurs as he takes his revenge not just upon the suitors but upon the women who collaborated with them, the authors raise the question of just what a return home can mean in the Western tradition. They emphasize the violence involved in reclaiming one's "property," as Ulysses' son, Telemachus, executes the women in the most brutal fashion. This allows the author to discuss the form in which this violent event is narrated as an implicit critique of the brutality being described. This essay examines the ambiguous status of mortality in the interpretation of Adorno and Horkheimer, and in their conception of their Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Key words: Heimat, Homecoming, Ulysses, Mortality