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the relationship between gods and mortals in the odyssey
the odyssey the relationship to the Gods
the odyssey the relationship to the Gods
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Ancient Greek Beliefs of Religion and Death Differs From Other Cultures
How does the Ancient Greek beliefs of religion and death differ with the view of other cultural groups? Death, the way it is represented in Homer's book,
The Odyssey, is always caused by human error. Whether their death was caused by greed, selfishness, or just being curious, many people died in The Odyssey.
Still, the question of what happens after we die remains. Many religions have different beliefs of religious ideas from the Ancient Greeks. Afterlife, is a belief where the comparisons among religions become extremely close. The Greek beliefs of gods and death are different from the modern day beliefs of other religions such as Judaism and Ancient Egyptian beliefs.
For example, The Odyssey begins with a scene containing a conversation among the gods. The goddess Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, is discussing the matter of Odysseus with Zeus, the head god and god of sky (Homer 10). Of course these are not the only Greek gods and goddesses. Other examples of Greek gods and goddesses are Apollo, god of music, poetry, medicine, archery, and young unmarried men and Hestes, goddess of the home. As you can see, the Greeks believed in many gods unlike the people of the Jewish fate who believed in one god. The Jewish god does not have an emblem that which it is represented by.
The belief is that the god is represented by everything. For example, members of the Jewish religion believe god is everywhere, in everything, and represented by everything they do. Another example of the religious differences is how
Ancient Egyptians believed in idol gods which are gods represented in statues.
Ancient Greek beliefs are different from those of other societies because of differences between how gods are represented in Judaism and Ancient Egyptian beliefs. Equally important are the Ancient Greek views of death. Death caused by human error is widespread throughout the book. Human error is encountered in each one of Odysseus's adventures on his return home. The Kyklopes represented the greediness, selfishness, and uncilvilization of Odysseus's men. Odysseus fell asleep and his men unleashed a bag of bad winds, throwing them off path
(Homer 315). Skylla and Kharybdis was a representation of death from nature when Odysseus's men stopped rowing and six of the men were killed. The Seirenes, with their beautiful singing voices represent suicide death. Hades, probably the most down to Earth adventure, represents time and fate. Many religions use time and fate as representations of why people die. Ancient Egyptians believed that when a person died, they were hand picked by god and therefore sacrificed.
Throughout Homer’s Odyssey there is a consistent internal conflict regarding identity. Odysseus’ long circuitous route home can be attributed not only to the gods but to his own flaws that additively form his identity. Particularly, these faults of complacency, arrogance, and desire for concealment as means of avoidance are outlined in his early interactions most explicitly with Polyphemus (IX). Phaeacia, where he recounts his adventures, serves as a transition point where Odysseus is forced to address his flaws. He gains the capacity to learn from his mistakes and change the person he sought to cover up with disguises (VI, VII).
In this long narrative poem, Odysseus changes from being disrespectful to the gods by explicitly saying that he doesn’t need them, to longing forgiveness later by stating that he is nothing without them. After the success with the Trojan Horse, Odysseus considered himself higher than the gods because he, a mortal, was able to accomplish something even the gods couldn’t. He boasted to Poseidon and the others about how he is overpowering, and how his power and abilities were far beyond their limits. His epic boasting to the gods had lead him to create his own obstacles as, he is one who essentially was the cause. This disrespectful attitude is the personality which shows how Odysseus behaved at the beginning of the story. It not only demonstrates what he was once like, but how his obstacles get much more precarious. As this is the attitude in the beginning, by the end of this epic, Odysseus understands the value of gods and their power, even if it’s for good or bad. At the end of book twenty-two, page 1160, on lines 107-109, Odysseus finally accepts the fact that he is not the biggest thing
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as a courageous and well-respected soldier who is loyal to his King and country. He is described by one of King Duncan's men as “brave Macbeth.” As a result of his bravery on the battlefield, Duncan decides to reward Macbeth with a new title – the Thane of Cawdor – as the last Thane was proven to be disloyal; however, Macbeth is unaware of this, and this creates tension in the audience. The opening scenes show that Macbeth is a powerful and courageous man who is not naturally inclined to do wrong, but is capable of being brutal when he needs to be. The meeting with the witches also reveal that Macbeth is a very ambitious man who craves an even greater power. There is contrast between Macbeth’s and Banquo’s attitudes towards the witches’ prophecies. Whilst Banquo dismissed the witches’ prophecies, Macbeth was “rapt withal.” This shows that Macbeth has thought about being “king hereafter.” Macbeth's first soliloquy reveals his deep desire to be king. His soliloquy also reveals that he would do anything to achieve it.
Holding Odysseus as the model of the homo religiosus who is well trained the rituals and ways of the gods, Homer attempts to show how the history of such a man's life can be riddled with suffering. Also, no matter whether the suffering is inflicted by fate, the will of the gods, other people, or man's own desires, the god's themselves have divined a system that will work to alleviate the intolerable condition of man.
"In him [Oceanus] Homer salutes the essence of all things, even the Gods, and regards him as a divinity whose power was inferior to none but Zeus'"
Ancient Greek mythology has made its way into public conscience and knowledge. So much so that any person on the street would be able to name at least one deity from their pantheon. From this public knowledge, much is known about the religions including its stories and mythologies. But less is known about a person’s role in Ancient Greek religion and even less about a woman roles in their religion. What roles the Ancient Greek people did play can be gathered from the Greek stories and myths. But more specifically what roles did Ancient Greek women play in their religion. The Ancient Greek myths and stories tell of priestess and women who remained virgins as a way of worshipping their gods. But more questions come from these, why did these women become priestess and what rituals did they perform? Both the reasons behind these motives and the process one goes through to become a priestess must be explored to better a woman’s role in Ancient Greek religion.
The Odyssey, written by Homer, is an epic of the great adventures of Odysseus. It tells of the challenging travels form leaving his home to serve in the Trojan War, to his well-deserved return to Ithaca. Odysseus known as “the man of many wiles” endured many challenging tasks as he traveled in search of his once home. Leaving behind his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, he was forced to leave. Around the sixteenth year Odysseus was gone, many believed that their once great leader was left for dead on an unknown country or was never to return to the land of Ithaca once again. Soon the suitors of over a hundred filled the halls of Odysseus’s palace, trying to marry his beautiful wife Penelope. When the suitors arrived in Odysseus’s home, hectic times became twice or even triple times worse. The suitors walked over everyone as if they had now ruled the town of Ithaca. They did not care who they hurt, as long as they got what they wanted when they wanted it. They broke almost every law of the gods; soon they realized they would have to may for dearly. As Odysseus desperately tried to fight his way back to his homeland. However, every time he got close it seems that the power of the gods was holding him back. The gods affected almost every aspect of Odysseus return and travels. They pushed him away, gave him heartache, destroyed his crew, and demolished his ship, they almost got him killed on several occasions and saved him from death. The actions that Odysseus once faced shaped his return home, because of his own choices he was able to return home but it is also what caused him to remain lost for ten years.
The first controversy is about the virtue of justice which means as equal or right. It could imply the relation of equality or morality between person to person or a person to society and vice versa. The Odyssey is reliable evidence about the non- existence of justice since ancient world. Even there were many Gods who had high position and strong power that could control everything and protect people from dangers, most of the cases they just did what they favored and for their own benefits. First, the bright-eyed goddess Athena who favored Odysseus asked her father Zeus to let Odysseus returned his home. She said to Zeus “but my heart breaks for Odysseus” (1.57) “that wise Odysseus shall return-home at last” (1.99). Then, she always helped him to overcome obstacles. For example, she assured Odysseus when he was escaping from Calypso’s land by countering Poseidon’s revenge on him “The rest of the winds she stopped right in their tracks” (5.422), “the goddess beat the breakers flat before Odysseus,/so he could reach the Phaeacians” (5.425-426). Another evidence of the non-justice is about the hatred and revenge of the King of the sea Poseidon to Odysseus "then every god took pity,/all except Poseidon. He raged on, seething against the great Odysseus till he reached his native lan...
Ancient Greek Religion There are many topics to be explored in Ancient Greek mythology. This unique polytheistic religion was based upon myths about anthropomorphic gods and goddesses. It impacted every facet of Grecian life, from law and ritual to culture and art. The individual as well as society both influenced the characteristics of the religion and were influenced by the religion itself. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece explains a variety of ways in which the Greeks were influenced by their religion.
Macbeth, during the beginning of the play, had some situations, choices, and events which changed his course of life. Macbeth's encounter with the witches significantly changed his life. The witches told him a prophecy which at first didn't affect him. The witches told him “All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.”
Abstract: William Blake's Songs of Innocence contains a group of poetic works that the artist conceptualized as entering into a dialogue with each other and with the works in his companion work, Songs of Experience. He also saw each of the poems in Innocence as operating as part of an artistic whole creation that was encompassed by the poems and images on the plates he used to print these works. While Blake exercised a fanatical degree of control over his publications during his lifetime, after his death his poems became popular and were encountered without the contextual material that he intended to accompany them.
Feminism is a perspective that views gender as one of the most important bases of the structure and organization of the social world. Feminists argue that in most known societies this structure has granted women lower status and value, more limited access to valuable resources, and less autonomy and opportunity to make choices over their lives than it has granted men. (Sapiro 441)
The position of women in Classical Athens has often been described as subordinate in comparison to men. Women were categorized in very particular ways: Athenian women were wives, while those who migrated to Athens from other city-states were slaves or prostitutes. Countless literature, from tragedy to comedy and political texts, reinforces the notion that citizen women were meant to serve their husbands within the confines of the oikos and produce legitimate sons in order to further the glory of men while non-Athenian women served their purpose towards men through sexual pleasure. While there may be partial truth to these views, Athenian women played a crucial role in the religious sphere. Religion was directly linked to civic identity and was a fundamental and sacred element of not only a city-state, but to Greece as a whole during the Classical period. Surviving documentation has demonstrated that Athenian women played a vital part to specific religious traditions, such as the participation in the festivals of Thesmophoria and Adonia. Furthermore, there exists evidence that proves women could also acquire the position of priestess for particular cults, a position that increased their reputation and status in a culture that considered them inferior. These marginalized women used religion as a way to carve out a sacred and protect space for themselves, using it to create a sense of freedom in their lives and to bridge the gap in equality between them and the dominant men.
Macbeth’s ambition to obtain power convinces him that it is his destiny to become King of Scotland, and that he should do anything to fulfill that destiny, even if it involves him committing tremendously immoral acts such as murder. After Macbeth realizes that the witches may actually speak the truth due to the second prophecy (Thane of Cawdor) becoming true, he begins to have an eerie and frightening thought of him killing his king and friend, Duncan, in order to ac...
Seeking for greater power, Macbeth murders Duncan who is the king at that time, which caused a great pain for the kingdom. Duncan is a great king, but just not a so good human reader. He has never been aware of Macbeth. He never have a thought that Macbeth might be a danger, who is willing to kill him for the throne. On the other hand, Macbeth does not accept to be just a general for the rest of his life. He wants a greater power, higher position than he is having at the time. Because of the suggests from the trio witches: “ All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!/ All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”(1.2.49-50), Macbeth has the thinking about killing the king to take his throne. By calling Macbeth the Thane of Cawdor, they give Macbeth the thought that being a king is his fate. On the night Macbeth is planning to murder Duncan, the Old Man see many strange events: “And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain),/ Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, /Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out/ Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would/ Make war with mankind” (2.4.14-18). It creates a scary feeling in the kingdom, and means something bad will happen to the kingdom.