...As humans or more importantly, mortals, even justified intentions can result in the deadliest of consequences. In addition, society often aims to choose the most viable of opportunities, however a compromise is usually forced and as a result, progress is made in irrelevant fields. In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, many conflicts occur between Odysseus and his enemies, however the entirety of them have legitimate reasons. Odysseus injures Polyphemus out of necessity for the survival of his crew. Also, he kills the suitors as compensation for tarnishing his home. Similarly, the servants and other such characters are killed for betraying Odysseus’s household and supporting the suitors. To begin, Odysseus drugs and blinds Polyphemus, not...
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...In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus, the main character, goes through years of trials and terrors along the seas to return home to Ithaka. Although he does make the treacherous journey to his kingdom, he still has to empty out his castle of cruel suitors. Therefore, he can’t yet be reunited with his wife and son. To prevent an assassination on arriving at the castle, the goddess Athena resolves to mask Odysseus as a poor, unfamiliar, and elderly beggar and commands him to visit the swine herder. Eumaios, a swine herder to a disguised Odysseus, who is perceived as a stranger, is amazingly hospitable by acting courteously to his guest and is willing to sacrifice the best of the little he has for the benefit and satisfaction of his company. First, Eumaios’s...
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...In The Odyssey, Odysseus shows many heroic traits. The one heroic trait that stood out the most to me was self-sacrifice. The first episode that Odysseus shows self-sacrifice when he goes last out of the Cyclopes cave. He comes up with the plan to tie his men to the bottom of sheep to escape the cyclops (personally I would rather be crushed and eaten by the cyclops in the most brutal way possible than be tied to animal but that’s irrelevant). Odysseus also held on to the leader sheep and went last to make sure his men were okay before he went. Odysseus almost gets caught by the cyclops because of him letting his men go first (I think that would be a great ending to this poem). The second episode where Odysseus showed self-sacrifice was...
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...Surprisingly, this is the better option. Circe advises Odysseus to hug the cliff of Scylla and sacrifice six men rather than risk losing his whole ship to Charybdis. Also, he should race through as quickly as possible instead of trying to fight her the monsters are female, of course. Odysseus hems and haws, since he'd rather not lose any men but Circle essentially tells him to suck it up. Wonder what she would tell the six men who are about to be sacrificed? One more thing: don't' kill Helios' cattle at Thrinakia, unless he wants to lose his entire...
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...Alma Morales Professor Derbyshire English 391 March 9, 2016 The Odyssey: The Power of Gods The epic of Homer The Odyssey is about Odysseus and his 10 year struggle to return home Ithaca where his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus are struggling with the suitors who are waiting to take Penelope’s hand and Ithaca’s throne while they await for Odysseus return. However, Odysseus struggled to return Ithaca for the reason that Poseidon one of the gods that appear during the epic prevent him to return to his homeland. The theme that I considered interesting about the epic The Odyssey is the Power of Gods. Gods were considered ‘supreme’to humans. This was because humans plead to the Gods whenever they need to achieve something, and the gods decided to please or not to please humans according to human’s effort in obtain their help. Through the epic The Odyssey from Homer, in numerous occasions gods interact with humans for example, in Book II ,Athena one of the goddesses interact with Telemachus as Mentor and she advises him to embark in a journey to go to look for his father Odysseus “the journey you have your heart set on won’t be delayed. I myself, your father’s old comrade, will equip a fast ship and sail along with you” (II.309-311). It seems that the power of gods in this epic is a very important part of human’s life. In addition, another aspect of the relationship between the gods and humans is that since humans believe gods have all the power over them, humans...
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...What is a hero? A hero is someone who is admired for their courage, bravery, and noble qualities. Heroic acts are often celebrated because they show the strength of the human spirit and the ability to overcome challenges. In literature, we often see characters put to the test in various ways to determine whether they are truly heroic. In Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey, we see the protagonist Odysseus facing numerous challenges on his journey back home to Ithaca. In this essay, we will explore what constitutes a heroic act and whether Odysseus acted heroically on his journey. First, one of the key aspects of a heroic act is courage in the face of danger. In Book 9 of The Odyssey, we see Odysseus and his men facing the danger of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Odysseus shows bravery as he devises a plan to blind the Cyclops and escape his clutches. He says, "I tied them [ram's wool] silently together, then slung a man under each middle one to ride there, shielded right and left by the others" (Book 9.). This shows Odysseus' quick thinking and bravery in taking on a giant who could easily overpower him and his men....
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...Loyalty is like a shadow it’s something that’s with you all of the time, but sometimes it’s hidden. Most people don’t show their loyalty hidden, but loyalty is something that’s not supposed to be hidden .To me loyalty is when someone is there for someone else. Loyalty is a characteristic many people should strive to have; it earns the trust and respect of many. A loyal person would never be able to fail someone because they are trustable. Loyalty is everywhere and there are many different kinds of loyalty. Loyalty to strangers is one of the many different kinds of loyalty. We have all showed loyalty to strangers at least once. When people follow rules somewhere either at school, work etc. This shows loyalty. Loyalty doesn’t only earn the respect of someone, but being loyal to a stranger show that you respect them even if you don’t know them. When we follow rules at some place it shows we are staying honest to the rules and the rule makers. Our honesty shows loyalty. Another type of loyalty is to friends. We all have friends, but there are many components to being loyal to your friends. When your friends tells you something and they expect you to keep it a secret, keeping this a secret shows loyalty. Not keeping the matter a secret will show disloyalty. Disloyalty will lose a friend’s trust and it will be really hard to regain a friend’s trust when it’s been lost. When a secret, which is supposed to be kept, gets out the friendship itself is in danger of breaking. Helping...
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...Odysseus: Hero or Not In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, Odysseus is a true thinking man’s hero. He faces many obstacles in his journey home from the Trojan War, with a curse from the sea god, Poseidon. Odysseus battles monsters, makes tough decisions, and fights with his integrity to get home, but through what some call “bad luck” and the size of his pride Odysseus finds himself in a pretty difficult predicament. However, like any other heroic tale, in the end he’s able to go home to his wife and son. The question is did he come back as a heroic legend or a selfish punk? Believe it or not, Odysseus is the demanding hero in this poem. Through tough decisions, sacrifices, and his humble attitude…at times; Odysseus shows the reader he is still a human...
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...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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...Do you have a desire for adventure? Imagine being on a ship for over a decade.What about being a hero who goes on quests exploring the world to reunite with their family? If you do then you should watch Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and read The Odyssey their adventures become a reality. In The Odyssey by Homer, and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief the heroes share both motivations and adventures; however, there assistance is different. Both Percy Jackson and Odysseus have the same motivation in there exploration, going home. Percy’s mother was taken and he must retrieve pearls to save her. Percy shows how much he wants to go home when he goes to the underworld with his accomplices and leaves his best friend instead of his mother. He also risks his life for the desire to go home by decapitating Medusa, fighting off a five headed Hydra and went into the underworld in search of his mother. In The Odyssey, Odysseus has been an a journey for twenty years, and just wants to get home to his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. Odysseus shows how much he wants to go home when he left Calypso's island, and set on his ten years journey to return home. He fought off Polyphemus, let his crew die, and kill all the suitors to get home to his wife and chilled in Ithaca....
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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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...The Odyssey is great book with many stories like it and different version of the story like the movie The Odyssey and the movie that is based of of it called Brother Where Art Thou. But in this Essay I will be writing about the similarities and differences between these three similar stories. Like how the time period of Brother Where Art Thou it’s set in a totally different time period so that’s a pretty big factor or the fact that the movie is missing a lot of parts because the book is really long and they can’t include everything because that would take forever. So first I going to go over the similarities and differences to the Odyssey book and the Movie. So some of the similarities is that the suitors do eventually get killed by odysseus...
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...Hail them who fought for glory and honour by the use of their bravery and intelligence that brought them to excellence. The movie Odyssey showed many Greek qualities perfectly. It also manifested and gave more colors and meanings to their mythology. The bravery of Odysseus mirrored how the Greeks stood for their own civilization. His intelligence manifested the Greek’s intelligence – their culture, their artworks and how they worked for their society’s growth were the products of this. Same as Odysseus, the Greeks loved their own society that they’re ready to sacrifice even their own lives. They had their very strong faith to their gods as their foundation in living. Greek’s unity leads them to excellence that no one could ever surpass. Odyssey tried to prove to their gods that he could achieve victory and honour without their help but he got it wrong. He then realized that without Poseidon, he can’t cross island from island; without Athena, he can never have his wisdom to conquer challenges; without Ionnus, he can’t have air to breath and so sail across oceans; wholly, without their gods, his life would never exist – the Greeks had this belief in their lives. They also can’t have their very well-known civilization without gods. Greeks had their unsurpassable love for their society as well as Odyssey. They had their lives that they’ve wanted and worked hard for. They accomplished many incomparable things and they became supreme in every artwork that had ever exist...
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...Canto 1 is a loosely translated epic written by a man over 2,500 years ago. The poem suggests that to improve, the living must look to dead for direction. Song 1 starts the reader off with the speaker’s journey in the Odyssey. The speaker travels to the underworld to speak with a seer named Tiresias, to seek knowledge from the minds of the dead. The speaker moves by a dreary boat that is "unpierced ever/ With glitter of sun-rays" (13-14). Odysseus can communicate with the dead directly but the speaker cannot and the ghosts remain. The ghosts, Homer and Divus, can be references to Pound’s past, and the blood offerings can represent his sacrifice of their work in his own. The speaker asks the summoned spirits various questions but, doesn’t get...
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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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