...The role of women in The Odyssey Women weren’t taken seriously for much in human history. There were things that men were allowed to do, but women wouldn’t even dare to think about. Basically, they were puppets used by men and those who were rich. They were treated as the weaker gender, the gender who was not capable of doing a man’s job. In resume, they would be used and had to follow orders. In The Odyssey, Odysseus was known as an epic hero, a brave, challenging, intelligent man. No one actually saw him as the unfaithful husband. In his journey back to his sweet home, he had made love to two women. Those two women were Calypso and Circe, both beautiful and evil. His little adventures were seeing as sacrifices to save his crew. “And now...
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...and ideals are the most important and defining of their culture. The religious beliefs and ideals that the Greeks hold of the Greek gods are what guide the individuals in this story over any other ideal or custom of their culture. As seen from early on in the book, The Odyssey, the gods play a heavy role in the lives of the Greeks. Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle, is the main goddess who is master of disguises. In The Odyssey, Athena comes to Telemachus as “Mentes” and explains that the “great Odysseus is not dead” (Fagles, pg. 85). Athena disguises herself as this lord of the Taphian men as to convince Telemachus that she is friend of his father’s not just a stranger. Unaware that “Mentes” is in fact Athena, Telemachus prepares to leave for Pylos and Sparta to not only set a name for himself but to seek information of his father. Telemachus was given a lot of motivation in his conversation with Athena and I believe a huge part of that is because she told him his father will be on his journey home through a “prophecy, one the immortal gods have planted in [her] mind” (Fagles, pg. 84). As you can see with other Greeks along the way as well in this journey, Odysseus and Telemachus have also given sacrifices to the Gods with the hope that they will...
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...and also the head of all the Greek city states when it came to matters of war. Agamemnon (the brother) and Menelaus convince and bully all the Greek city states into joining with them for the war. A thousand ships are sent. Despite the extreme force, the Trojans are doing very well at holding the Greeks off. Hector, another Trojan prince, is very good at war. The walls are huge and strong. All the Greeks manage to do in 9 long years is to rape and pillage nearby small towns. Troy still stands. The Iliad starts with an argument between Agamemnon (top guy) and Achilles (best fighter) and ends, 24 days later, with Achilles killing Hector. This is a terrible loss for the Trojans. Finally, it is Odysseus (the hero of the book the Odyssey) who figures out that they should make a giant horse and hide a few people in it and pretend to go away. The Trojans have a long and proud history of being horse tamers and they would consider this a sort of "Sorry for the war" kind of departing gift. The ruse works. The horse is...
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...This is largely attributable to the fact that The Odyssey was composed approximately eight hundred years prior to Jesus’ death and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was composed another thirteen hundred years thereafter. In the case of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we see many of the earlier cultural overtones of the noble warrior and the divine nature of nobility now mixing with the encroaching ideals of Christianity. One of the most important of those ideals is the afterlife and that is going to be a focal point, because of its direct negation of the fifth thesis. It does not, however; negate the thesis in its entirety, because we still see elements that are off limits under the influence of Christianity. Whereas death is now less of an issue because he was with “and [had] been on God's side .. [Otherwise] He had met with many mishaps and mortal harms” (Harrison). One could imagine any sort of wild and otherwise adverse explorative missions as being benign or even heroic with the promise of salvation or the furtherance of the “kingdom of god.” I cannot presume to know what was implied by his sacrifice or the sacrifice of others in his position, but it is not hard to imagine that where Odysseus faced a rather perilous outcome in some scenarios – even the worst of outcomes were tempered by the underlying promise of salvation...
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...What is the definition of a true hero to you? Each hero has a different meaning and role to play in order to accomplish a task. A hero doesn’t have to a be a buff person like many people think today. Famous or not, big or small, anybody in this world can be a hero. They just have to sacrifice themselves for what is right and say what they know is righteous. In the epic The Odyssey, I consider Odysseus a hero. An example of a situation Oddyseus was an actual hero was when he helped his men escape the Cyclops. According to The Odyssey, Oddyseus “tied then silently together, twinning cords of willow from the ogre’s bed; then slung a man under each middle one.” Oddyseus tied each of his men together under a sheep and tried his best to make sure...
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...The Odyssey is a Homeric Poem written by Homer, a blind poet, that is one of the greatest poems ever written. The Odyssey is filled with heros, monsters, creatures, and gods. This poem is about a journey taken by Odysseus. On his way home he faces many obstacles making his journey home much more complicated. While he is facing obstacles he is faced by 4 gods Athena, Zeus, Helios, and Poseidon. These gods help him throughout his journey home. Athena, the most powerful god, helps Odysseus make his journey home by providing him with guidance and beauty. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, warfare, crafts, and is one of the most powerful of the 12 olympian gods. Athena created the potter's wheel, vase, horse bridle, the chariot and the ship....
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...Loyalty in The Odyssey Many human cultures assign values as well as worthiness to the existence of loyalty. As a Classical culture known for its emphasis of loyalty at home as well as abroad, the faithfulness of ancient Greeks in their relationships is exemplified in many Classical texts, such as Homer’s The Odyssey. In both ancient Greece as well as in The Odyssey, loyalty was the social norm because of the egalitarian nature of the city-state as well as because of the typical ancient Greek family structure. Not only because of social expectations as well as traditions was loyalty expected, but there was also an added pressure by one’s religious conviction such that it was believed that if the guests were in any way or manner mistreated, then the ancient Greek deities would punish the offender(s). There are several passages in Homer’s Classical text The Odyssey which illustrate these aspects of ancient Greek loyalty. In illustration of the faithfulness between Odysseus as well as his crew, there is a passage that notes loyalty in the crew-leader relationship: He saw the town as well as learned the minds of many distant men, as well as weathered many bitter nights as well as days his deep heart at sea, while he fought only to save his life, to bring his shipmates home. But not by will or valor could he save them, for their own recklessness destroyed them all- children as well as fools they killed as well as feasted on the cattle of Lord Helios, the Sun… (651). It would initially...
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...Odyssey The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the world masterpieces that have survived the times . Admired through the ages as the ultimate epics Homer 's Iliad and the Odyssey , was venerated by the ancient Greeks themselves as the cornerstone of their civilization (Nagy , Online . The two epics are the portrayal of early Greek civilization with the spotlight focused on heroism and the heroes ' struggles and triumph Early Greece likewise was depicted in the two epics as a people who believed in the power of the immortals which was clearly shown in how br the gods and goddesses ran the lives of the characters The Iliad and Odyssey are both colorful and dramatic . Not only was Homer able to use vivid s of the different war episodes but he was also successful in portraying supernatural beings that Odysseus met during his journey back home . These styles of Homer likewise characterized the people during the time that the epics were written A very diverse Greek culture was shown in the Iliad and the Odyssey Just like what was previously mentioned , people in ancient Greece revered their heroes . The people then consider men or women who were endowed with superhuman abilities which were believed to have come from the gods and the goddess as their heroes . These heroes likewise embodied the character of the Greek people as a whole . Homer used the different characters in the two epic to give a picture of how society and the people was during the earlier times Achilles was regarded...
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...For the vast majority of human history, the arts have played an important role in society. With the recent developments of technology, more specifically, mobile phones and television, art appears to be fading as most people spend their time watching television, playing video games, and texting. Despite this, the great works of literature of the past and present will last forever, never disappearing due to technology. Personal technology never lasts more than a few years, but the greatest pieces of literature have the power to last through centuries. Lasting over the years, the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is a perfect example of the power that literature has to transcend time. Published in 1930, this work has not lost to technology....
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...In Homer’s The Odyssey, Homer presents a perplexing and complex dilemma revolving around the ambiguity and problematic language used to describe the ideology of justice and vengeance. Moreover, it is the returning of equivalent harm for harm that seems to run through the heart of the archaic Greek culture that allows for crimes to merge with and become their own punishment. The relationship between crime and punishment is a tight linkage that seems to be arranged by Homer in an attempt to justify the moral positions as well as the actions of many major characters throughout The Odyssey. Distinctively, the role of justice and vengeance can be exhibited in the interactions between Polyphemus, Odysseus, Poseidon and the suitors. The conflict...
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...From the wise words of Woodrow Wilson, “Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice”. An important aspect in building relationships with others is loyalty. In the book, The Odyssey by Homer, loyalty plays a huge role. A Greek hero named Odysseus took twenty years to return home from the Trojan War. During Odysseus’ way back to Ithaca, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus try to ward off the suitors who want to marry Penelope until Odysseus’ homecoming. On his journey home, the amount of crew members quickly declined and truly showed the loyalty Odysseus held for his crew. Notwithstanding that Odysseus shows a little bit of loyalty to his crew, he constantly puts them in danger, he doesn’t have a close bond with a majority of his crew, and he puts no...
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...fights alongside them. In the greek parables, The Odyssey, by Homer and in Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles a hero is described as someone who perseveres on even when burdened by the weight of the unknown. The hero of The Odyssey is named Odysseus, a young man who overcame many trials to get back to his home in Ithaca, and the hero of Oedipus Rex is King Oedipus, a ruler who has his people's best interest at heart. The protagonists in these tales are both reputed to have heroic qualities and yet how they dealt with being receptive to new ideas, their humility, and their relationship with a higher power was what led each to...
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...patriarchal ideals of their society. In The Odyssey, Calypso expresses her outrage when Zeus sends Hermes to her island to relay his order to let Odysseus return home to Ithaca. Unable to go against Zeus’s commands, Calypso shows her futile defiance by declaring Zeus’s unfairness and her likeness to Demeter. Calypso exclaims: Despite knowing that she cannot resist against higher gods like Zeus, Calypso tries to form a semblance of...
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...Biography of Homer (?-? BC) Beyond a few fragments of information, historians and classicists can only speculate about the life of the man who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. The details are few. We do not even know the century in which he lived, and it is difficult to say with absolute certainty that the same poet composed both works. The Greeks attributed both of the epics to the same man, and we have little hard evidence that would make us doubt the ancient authorities, but uncertainty is a constant feature of scholarly work dealing with Homer's era of Greek history. The Greeks hailed him as their greatest poet, as well as their first. Although the Greeks recognized other poets who composed in Greek before Homer, no texts from these earlier poets survived. Perhaps they were lost, or perhaps they were never written down‹Homer himself was probably on the cusp between the tradition of oral poetry and the new invention of written language. Texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey existed from at least the sixth century BC, and probably for a considerable span of time before that. These two great epic poems also had a life in performance: through the centuries, professional artists made their living by reciting Homer, performing the great epics for audiences that often know great parts of the poem by heart. It is impossible to pin down with any certainty when Homer lived. Eratosthenes gives the traditional date of 1184 BC for the end of the Trojan War, the semi-mythical...
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...Examine Byron’s response to at least two of the places visited by Childe Harold: Greece, Rome, Portugal, Venice & co. ‘I have always had great contempt for women; and formed this opinion of them not hastily, but from my own fatal experience. My writings, indeed tend to exalt the sex; and my imagination has always delighted in giving them a beau ideal likeness, but I only drew them as a painter or sanctuary would do, -- as they should be.’[1] (Medwin, Nov 1821- Mar 1822 (Cf. Ideality of Art)) p. 195 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was Lord George Gordon Byron’s first composition which he begun in 1809 and finally completed in 1818. The structure of the poem follows a young promising knight through his journey around Europe. The poem is autobiographical: Byron uses Childe Harold as a fictional figure to respond to, and comment on, life and experiences around Europe whilst Byron was undertaking his own ‘Tour’. The Grand Tour ‘became the fashionable way for young male aristocrats to complete an education whose foundation was classical Greek and Roman history, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry.’[2] As a Romantic poet, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Byron uses the depiction of nature as a way to express his opinions of place. Childe Harold is full of images and motifs which takes its reader on a journey, or a pilgrimage, of self-discovery and through foreign lands in the truly beautiful Byronic style. Politics have dominated the critical analysis of Childe Harold in the past,...
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