In The Odyssey, Homer contrasts Odysseus and his native island of Ithaka with other characters and places that are perceived to be superhuman and subhuman as well as with the less than fully human. Throughout the course of this paper you will be introduced to a vast number of characters and several circumstances will be examined in order to answer the question of what it is to be human and fully human.
Up until the time Telemakhos leaves to find news of his father, he is viewed as naïve and child-like by the suitors and his own mother, even though he is in his late teens. This lack of recognition can be attributed to Telemakhos’s poor choices, or lack of choices early in the epic. While Telemakhos remained loyal to a father he has never known, without Athena’s assistance he would have done absolutely nothing about the suitors. Though it was this loyalty to his father that cast him on his journey to Sparta. Nestor reinforces in the prince a respect for loyalty and faith. After he joins his father and is made an important part of the king’s plot to overcome the suitors, a good deal of Telemakhos’ motivation is based on faith. He believes in the support of the gods, especially Athena; and he believes in this great man, his father, whom he has known only as a legend. Telemakhos rarely wavers. At the showdown with the suitors in the great hall, he is shrewd enough to get his mother out of the line of fire and mature enough to be a real help to Odysseus. The prince stands against more than a hundred suitors with only his father and a couple of herdsmen on his side. He fights valiantly, earning his father’s respect and trust.
Now the greatest contrast among the secondary characters are between the untamed race of one-eyed cannibalistic Kyklops who force our hero to stay for lunch and the hospitable, civilized god-fearing Phaiakians who sail Odysseus home to Ithaka. I will use King Alkinoos and Polyphemos to represent their respected people and islands.
The Kyklops, led by Poseidon’s son Polyphemos, are barbaric brutes with no laws, traditions, councils of elders, or hospitality. They do not fear the gods, which is odd cause they know the gods exist. Nearly as powerful as the gods, Polyphemos scoffs at the concept of hospitality and welcomes his guests by devouring two for supper.
This shows that Odysseus’ self-serving nature extends beyond material greed into the equally sinful realm of pride. In a classic display of hubris, Odysseus taunts the Cyclopes fulfilling the sole purpose of stroking Odysseus’s ego. At first it appears that our hero is lacking foresight, but Odysseus tells Polyphemus his name in hopes that tales of his cunning will spread throughout Greece: a very selfish goal, directly resulting in the endangerment of the lives of both him and his men throughout the remainder of their travels.
The book says, ".-for he, too, was sitting there, unhappy among the suitors, a boy, daydreaming"(277). He is no comparison to Odysseus as a leader or fighter. As the book goes on, we see Telemakhos become more and more like his father. By the end of the fight with the suitors we see him now matured from the youth we saw into the man he should be.
Socrates, a Greek philosopher stated, "Look death in the face with joyful hope, and consider this a lasting truth: the righteous man has nothing to fear, neither in life, nor in death, and the Gods will not forsake him” (Socrates). This explains the basis for Greek beliefs that can be carried over to values and qualities of them. As in this, Homer, the author of The Odyssey, portrays many Greek values that make up a righteous man or as, Homer’s character Odysseus, an epic hero. The Odyssey is the story of King Odysseus' return from the Trojan War to his kingdom of Ithaca. Stories, like The Odyssey, are told with the intent of delivering a message that was important to their culture. Through characters and situations, The Odyssey promotes and emphasizes many important ancient Greek values such as hospitality, pride, and fate.
In Book eight of Homer’s Odyssey our hero Odysseus has come to the palace of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians. This book can be read as a historical record, containing paragons and social rules. These rules and paragon are Homer’s and the archaic Greek’s view of a society in its most undisturbed form. Homer uses the Phaeacians to illustrate what behaviors are to be expected of a kingdom. By giving the listener/reader such a calm and well-organized realm Homer creates a stark juxtapose to all of the other oikos (homes) seen previously in the epic. Family, peace, respect, leadership, religion, sport, sailing, and much more are exampled in their quintessential form. All these aspects of Greek culture are held to high esteem and the Phaeacians are given all of these qualities by the gods.
The Odyssey, an epic poem written by Homer and translated by Robert Fitzgerald, is about the war hero Odysseus' ten year adventure to return home after the Trojan War. At one point in the epic poem, Odysseus is retelling his adventure at the land of the Kyklopês, in which he and his crew go to an island filled with these creatures. Through Odysseus, Homer uses contrasting connotation when speaking of the crew and the Kyklopês to convey that mankind is better than the Kyklopês using two different domains domains of society.
The relationship between Odysseus and Telemakhos is a blind love. That is because they never really got to know each other because Odysseus has been gone for most of Telemakhos’ life. One example of this blind love is when Odysseus hears about how the suitors are mistreating and stealing from Telemakhos. Odysseus gets so irate that he was then even more determined than ever, to return to his family. Telemakhos also exhibits the same kind of blind love towards his father. Even though people have told him that his father was dead, he never believed it. He felt that his father was alive and was willing to sacrifice his life to prove it. Telemakhos was inexperienced at directing a boat, but he was willing to try because he felt something inside of him that gave him the strength to go on. Thus, this relationship between Odysseus and Telemakhos gave both of them the courage to overcome the hardships ahead of them.
In The Odyssey, Homer, or more so, the characters, often referred to Odysseus as the ‘Great Odysseus’. In the text, it is obvious to see that Odysseus demonstrates arrogance, charisma, over-confidence, and pride. Odysseus and his m...
Odysseus is a peculiar mix of both heroic and intelligent qualities that make him seem both human and supernatural. The Odysseus portrayed in the Iliad somewhat contrasts the Odysseus we see in the Odyssey. For the p...
As Telemakhos, who is ignorant of how real family life should be, travels in search of his father, he learns about family life. In Pylos, he meets Nestor, who asks his son, Peisistratus, to accompany him. This is important because it is the first time Telemakhos has a real friend. In Sparta, he meets King Menelaos and Helen, who are in the midst of the celebration of a double wedding. Here he is shown what a real family should be. Menelaos and Helen have had their troubles. But since they were reunited after the Trojan War, their lives together have been happy and their relationship is loving, honest, and healthy. By the same token, their kingdom thrives, because of this healthy family relationship.
The reader first finds the character of Telemachus sitting among the suitors in his father’s palace. This seemingly unimportant detail yields information regarding his temperament. The suitors, whom Homer portrays as malicious usurpers, continue to take advantage of Telemachus’ hospitality. Instead of defending his home, his mother, and his belongings from these men, Telemachus numbers among them. This lack of assertiveness displays his frailty and his helplessness given the overwhelming circumstances. At this point, Athena, disguised as Odysseus’ old friend Mentes, visits Telemachus in order to “inspire his heart with courage” (I.105). The two share a meal and engage in a lengthy conversation. The goddess discusses how Telemachus should handle the troublesome suitors and suggests a journey to try to ascertain the whereabouts of Odysseus. The conversation appears to immediately galvanize the young man’s resolve. In fact, immediately after her departure, he summons the courage to confront the suitors, demanding that they are to leave his house at once. The assertiveness that Telemachus displays in this instance is a dramatic departure from ...
Getting somewhere is not just the destination, but even more so the journey. The goals are our destination and obstacle and temptations litter the voyage. Like Odysseus, achieving these goals is not a cinch. Obstacles must be faced or avoided, and temptations should be resisted.
Of the many proofs of Telemachus' maturation three are sufficient to render an accurate account of what virtues he gained. The gained virtues shown are courage, wisdom, and prudence. Courage is shown when Telemachus decides to go around Nestor's house rather than passing through it, for Telemachus goes out to sea knowing that an ambush awaits him. This wisdom is manifested in his knowledge that if he stops Nestor's hospitality will delay him even more. And prudence is shown in Telemachus' ability to control his desires for comfort in Nestor's house and his decision to endure hardship at sea. Next Telemachus' confidence and hospitality are shown when he takes in Theochlamenos the seer. In the beginning of the poem Telemachus is not confident enough in his ability to provide hospitality to Athena disguised as Mentor, but now Telemachus is happy to provide the seer with refuge. Another proof of Telemachus' virtues is his confidence in ordering his mother and her maids to comply with his will; their obedience shows us that he is worthy of respect. Thus Telemachus possesses the virtues necessary to be a ruler: courage, wisdom, prudence, confidence, and hospitality.
“The Odyssey” is an epic poem that tells the story of Odysseus and the story of his many travels and adventures. The Odyssey tells the main character’s tale of his journey home to the island of Ithaca after spending ten years fighting in the Trojan War, and his adventures when he returns home and he is reunited with his family and close friends. This literary analysis will examine the story and its characters, relationships, major events, symbols and motifs, and literary devices.
Greek mythology deals significantly with culture and its factors, as they describe the societies and the people inhabiting it by depicting their everyday life and the state of their land. Both Hephaestus, in Homer’s Iliad, and Odysseus, in Homer’s The Odyssey, set out to portray the cultures that they saw, yet the cultures and societies varied greatly, from Hephaestus illustrating the highly developed societies of the Greek and their culture; while on the other hand, Odysseus seems baffled by how underdeveloped the Cyclopes land and culture is. Hephaestus and Odysseus seem to have the same understanding what is normal of a culture, society, and their factors; however, there are noteworthy variations between their accounts.
Homer’s The Odyssey is a Greek story that follows the journey of its primary character, Odysseus, back to his home in Ithaca after the Trojan War. Odysseus encounters many challenges in his journey home, from encounters with Polyphemus the Cyclops, the witch Circe and even the ghosts of dead Greeks. Meanwhile, his household in Ithaca is being threatened by suitors of his wife, Penelope, all wanting to inherit Odysseus’ possessions in the belief that he was already dead. Like many epic heroes, Odysseus possesses many admirable qualities. Three good characteristics of Odysseus are—cleverness, bravery and strength—here are some supporting instances from the epic that demonstrates Odysseus possession of such characteristics.