The Odyssey

By marrying her, the suitors hope to gain control over Odysseus’s wealth and power. However, Penelope remains faithful to Odysseus. But, as a woman, she is powerless to remove the suitors from the palace. And without a man in the household, she is subject to her father’s decisions. However, despite his wish for her to remarry, Penelope clings to the hope of Odysseus’s return and remains faithful to him.

After the fall of Troy, the protagonist of the epic, Odysseus, set sail for his home, Ithaca, where his faithful wife and son were waiting for him. Over the course of his journey, Odysseus faced some of the most ferocious opponents known to the Greeks. Even through this formidable journey, Odysseus and his family have stayed true to the diverse aspects of the ancient Greeks. The Odyssey exemplifies the human ideals of hospitality, loyalty and perseverance. The Odyssey serves as a great example of an ideal that the ancient Greeks valued, the sense of hospitality towards others.

Despite his house being overridden by the suitors, he is still welcoming of this stranger. When she is about to leave, he offers that she stay longer and wants to treat her with honor (1.352-60). Telemachus has no idea who Athena is, yet he still shows extreme generosity towards her. Telemachus is a perfect role model for xenia. Even though the suitors have been pushing him around for years, he still finds it in his heart to provide strangers a lovely experience when they visit him.

Perhaps he was a lazy man, or a peace-loving man or an ignorant man, but regardless of the reason he decided to be distant and quiet, his noninterference only served to exacerbate his daughter’s problems. He had opportunities to speak to his wife about her behavior when it was apparent that her actions caused suffering for their daughter. A case in point is the dinnertime scene when the wife serves only “small portions of steamed fish and vegetables, chicken with the skin removed,” then after dinner when everyone was still hungry she would tell her daughter “It’s because of you that we didn’t get enough to eat, that we’re going to bed hungry . . .” (158).

In Book XVI of Homer's “The Odyssey” the audience learns the characteristics of the suitors Eurymachus, Antinous, and Amphinomus through Homer’s rhetorical strategies. Homer has the suitors make these speeches to show the audience the opinions of the suitors on Telemachus safely making it home to Ithaca. In the first suitor Eurymachus speech, the audience learns that he “cares” about how Telemachus returns just so he can get sympathy from Penelope. In Antinous’s speech the audience gains the knowledge that Eurymachus is not a good man, because he just wanted Telemachos dead. In the third suitors speech, the audience learns that Amphinomus likes to take the safe approach, by only doing what the gods permit him to do.

Since the minstrel is a singing poet who tells the story, he solves a great mystery that the king cannot even figure out. The multiple narrative of this epic encapsulates the tradition of oral storytelling and the fictional world of Greece culture. It also demonstrates the multiple heroic and noble men of the times. Storytelling was a form of entertainment during the ancient times and The Odyssey, along with the Iliad, became the backbone for which the fictional Greek literature was based upon. Bibliography: Homer, Robert Fitzgerald (translator), D.S.

In addition to each author having a different writing style, The Aeneid is used as a form of propaganda while The Odyssey is a record of Greek myths and values. Although written more than six hundred years apart, it is apparent that Virgil pulled much of his writing from Homer’s. This is demonstrated through the similarities in plots between The Odyssey and The Aeneid. The first half of The Aeneid can be summarized as a hero wandering, much like the story of The Odyssey. One example of this is in book 1 of The Aeneid when Aeneas and the Trojans land at Carthage.

The last year of the Trojan War is depicted in Homer’s epic, The Iliad. Homer constructs a legend of honor, love, sacrifice, and the Olympian gods. The Iliad is believed to be principally created by the renowned Greek writer, Homer around the year 750 B.C. One of the purposes of the epic is to keep the stories of the Trojan War and Ancient Greece alive. It is also a tale that entertains, and teaches those from all periods of history of honor, courage, sacrifice, and love.

Homer used in media res to show respect to the gods by starting the story “In the bright hall of Zeus…” (I. 42). The author depicts conservation between Zeus and Athena about the fate of Odysseus to show that the gods always come first even before the main character. Homer uses the curiosity of the reader to his advantage by starting out Odysseus’ long journey home in media res. Divine intervention is another major component of this epic.

Kleos is a common theme in Homer 's epic, the Odyssey, the main example being that of Odysseus and his son Telemachus, who is concerned that his father may have died a pathetic and pitiable death at sea rather than a reputable and gracious one in battle. Kleos has proven to be very important to Odysseus time and time again. From the way he is introduced, to his actions, to the way he is viewed