Homesickness

Homesickness is generally described as a feeling of longing for one's familiar surroundings. It frequently occurs when one travels or, more rarely, when one experiences a sense of tumult within a familiar context. Homesickness is especially common in youth - one may experience a sense of dread or helplessness on their first day of school, or on a protracted summer vacation away from their parents. This emotion has been explored in literature for centuries, and is a prominent theme in many heroic epics such as the Odyssey, by Homer. In these tales, a hero will have an overwhelming desire to reach their familiar surroundings, often geographic, and many times including a love interest, and is willing to risk life and limb in fantastic circumstances in order to recapture this lost homeland. Some modern novelists have turned this idea on its head by having the protagonist reach the geographic location where "home" existed, but find that he has romanticized his memories of home or the familiar aspects of home have been replaced with foreign ones, often paralleling the foreign circumstances against which he has fought on his journey back.