Characters in the Odyssey

The Odyssey is a story about a hero’s epic journey throughout the world. First, Odysseus has to outwit different characters that want to end his journey, he must remain in control of his group by keeping them safe, that’s what makes his the hero of this story. Second, he and his men are faced with a lot of different obstacles that they must overcome so that they can complete their journey and make it home to their families. Last, he has to protect his own family from different people. If the…

Structure and form were of great concern to the ancient Greeks. This can be seen from the many conventions that are found in a Greek epic. These epics are long stories or poems that are spoken in hexameter. This paper will discuss the gods and heroes, who are prominent figures in epics. It will also describe the theme of an epic, what the setting of an epic entails, and the major events in an epic, how epics use extended similes, and what it means for an epic to begin in medias res. The theme of…

they are not good guests. This may not have been a prevalent issue in ancient Greek culture because people were supposed to be hospitable, but surely it happened, as shown in The Odyssey. When people are staying somewhere where they aren’t welcome or wanted there will be repercussions regardless of the culture. In The Odyssey there are a few scenes of violence that arise because people overstayed their welcome and were not good guests. In Book IX, Odysseus makes the fatal mistake of assuming…

Fight for Home “The Odyssey” by Homer is a myth of a man who is the main protagonist of the story. The story demonstrates the importance of home. This is revealed when Odysseus shows he is persistent and has temptation on his journey home. When he reaches obstacles he follows a method and beats them every time. His perseverance leads to him finally reaching Ithaca after twenty-years on the seas. Odysseus realizes that if he does not give up hope and he trudges through each hardship at sea he…

overcoming obstacles, and plain cunning. In the Odyssey, Homer depicts Odysseus as a noble person. Odysseus faces various hurdles on his voyage home, which he overcomes with both his intellect and strength. In this episode, I will focus on the smallest details of Odysseus' character and the challenges of his heroism, compared with the concept of heroism portrayed in "The Most Dangerous Game" and the song "Holding Out for a Hero." In Book 9 of The Odyssey, Odysseus faces a major challenge. When…

Helen of Troy will always be a notable character from ancient Greek literature. From the moment Homer first spoke of her, certain things about her will be forever more written in stone. She will always be female, the wife of Menalaus, cause of the Trojan War, beautiful, and the daughter of Zeus. These are things that very few orators and authors dare to meddle with and those who do come out perhaps not as well of on the other end of things. There are however, the reactions and the inferences to…

from ancient cultures, but it also persists through media and is often times reborn into new myths. Storytellers, like The Walt Disney Company or even grandparents, continue to retell myths in their own respective ways tailoring various themes and characters to their audience. Similar to ancient myths, modern mythology is created to invoke feelings of admiration, joy, sorrow, horror, and thrill. Modern tales present many perspectives of the human condition. The human condition is a term that…

reasons on why we took that journey. But, in the end, journeys are meant to teach us something that can drastically change our lives. Something that Odysseus from The Odyssey by Homer, Kira Salak from The Cruelest Journey: 600 Miles to Timbuktu, and the character from ¨The Journey¨ by Mary Oliver all have in common is that the characters all learned a lesson that heavily impacted the way they lived day to day. Odysseus learned many lessons in his pursuit, but the main lesson he learned was to…

The ethic of hospitality is quite prevalent in Homer’s Odyssey. Its presence shows how important hospitality was to the ancient Greeks. They were expected to host others in need as if they were one’s own family, and guests were expected to respect their hosts. The gods are responsible for punishing those who practice improper hospitality. As it turns out, many of the characters in The Odyssey do not follow the Greek ethic of hospitality, and are subsequently punished by the gods for doing so. In…

of self-serving bias (www.psychologytoday.com) is when people tend to attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors, so quite literally, self-serving bias is making oneself look good and blaming other factors. In Book 2 of the Aeneid, Virgil recounts the Battle of Troy from the Roman perspective while in Books 3 and 4 of the Odyssey and in the Iliad, Homer recounts the battle from the Greek perspective. Both epics tell of the story of the…