Island of Cicones
After the Trojan War, Odysseus lands on the island of Cicones where his men raid the city of Ismarus. While doing this they also attack their people and rob them of their belongings. Once the goods were divided and shared, Odysseus advised his men that they depart. The crew goes against him and stay. As the team of men enjoys the Cicones sheep and wine, the Cicones become tougher and greater in size. They become so good to where they are able to take down Odysseus’s men. He loses seventy-two men and quickly sails away before more are killed.
Odysseus’ and his men should have learned to do to others what they would have them do to them. Just as they wouldn’t have wanted someone to raid there island and steal their food and families they shouldn’t have done it to the Cicones. In life were supposed to always treat people the way we would want them to treat us. By being nice and kind to people we cannot always, but a lot of the time expect it in return. Odysseus and his men should have never raided the island in the first place. It was a mistake from the beginning and caused him to lose a significant amount of men.
Island of the Lotus-eaters
At the end of a dreadful storm, Odysseus and his men land on the island of the Lotus-eaters. He sends a few of his men to find out if the natives are “god-fearing men or cruel and merciless savages.” After waiting quite a long time his men never return, so he goes off to find them. What had happened was that after the men had met the welcoming Lotus-eaters the men were offered the Lotus plant which they then began eating. This flower was like a drug, it made them forget all about their journey home with Odysseus and Greece. All the men wanted to do was continue ea...
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...chus. When Everett sees his daughters and begins talking to them they say that he is not their dad because their dad had got hit by a train. No matter how hard he tried to convince them and say that he didn’t they wouldn’t believe him. It goes the same with Odysseus trying to convince Telemachus it was him, his father, but Telemachus believed his father had died at sea. He considered his father being a god but after an explanation he was convinced. In this same scene the girls talk about their mother finding a man named Vernon who is “bona fide.” The girls call him a suitor at least twice just as the men in the Odyssey were called. Vernon is alike to the suitors in the story because just as he is waiting to marry penny they are doing the same for Penelope. This act in the movie goes along with the part of when Odysseus returns to Ithaca in the book of the Odyssey.
What are the key points you will want to emphasize in your online profile for Character 1 (3-4 sentences)?
A mighty storm sent by Zeus pushes them along for nine days until they land at the land of the lotus eaters. While searching for vittles and resupplying. Natives offer Odysseus’s men the fruit of the lotus. Being gracious guest they eat the fruit losing all ambitions of returning home, all they desire is eating more of the intoxicating fruit. The only reason they make it off the island is Odysseus actions of dragging them back to the ship, and locking them up.
The recklessness of Odysseus and his crew places them in completely avoidable predicaments that not only lengthens the journey but also results in casualties. At the start of their journey home, they sack a stronghold of the Cicones.
Odysseus wouldn’t of taken ten years after the Trojan war to get home if it wasn’t for his prideful trait. Pride causes Odysseus suffering all throughout the book. For example, once Odysseus was on his way off the island of the Cyclops, the epic says “I would not heed them in my glorying spirit, but let my anger flare and yelled: “Cyclops, if ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye: Laertes son, whose home’s on Ithaca.” After Odysseus and his men escape Cyclopes island, Odysseus pride kicks in and he tells off the Cyclop that he blinded. Telling the Cyclop his real identity, and his business. The Cyclop prayed to his father Poseidon (sea god), which Poseidon is still upset and still hold a grudge towards Odysseus, because Odysseus did not thank the gods after he won the Trojan war, and because of his pride, he said he did it all on his own. This would only cause more trouble for Odysseus and his journey home to extend
When telling a story, it is necessary for there to be a main character which is usually a hero. They try to find themselves or fulfill a task in order to be true to who they are. While they are trying to find who they are or fulfill a task to stay true they conquer obstacles that are standing in the way for them to succeed. Some heroes succeed some fail. Odysseus from the Odyssey is a good example of a hero who fulfills his tasks in order to be true to who he is by having a quest or a mission to get back home after the Trojan war to his dear wife and family. He has obstacles trying to return and reclaim his home, Ithaca. The obstacles are, being held hostage by a Cyclops, Poseidon making the ocean difficult for Odysseus and his men, being held hostage by two goddesses, and when he arrives home he is faced with the suitors who try to take Penelope as their wife and taking everything from their home.
Odysseus starts his journey relying on himself more than others. He does not distribute responsibilities but rather does everything himself as he is not trusting of people. Odysseus not trusting others is a sign that he is failing as a leader. He does not trust his wife Penelope to be home alone all those years without him while he is off with Calypso (which is why he wants to return home to her) and he does not put any trust into his crew members, whom he will be journeying onwards with for many years in the future. His lack of trust in others is seen when he receives the bag of winds from Aeolus as a parting gift and he does not allow the men in his crew to open it and refuses to inform the men what is in the bag. This obviously backfires once the crewmen open the bag and strong winds that are suppose...
Often through great literature, there is an epic hero. In the Odyssey, Homer tells the journey of one man’s journey home from the Trojan War. The protagonist of the epic poem Odysseus is often regarded as a great hero. However, Odysseus is not quite the glorious soldier that people often see him as. Odysseus shows that he is an antihero through his pride, disloyalty, and bloodthirstiness.
... as the suitors. “Would I play such a trick on you, dear child? It is true, true, as I tell you, he has come! That stranger they were baiting was Odysseus. Telemakhos knew it days ago- cool head, never to give his father away, till he paid off those swollen dogs!” (Book XXIII, Lines 27-32). Like most heroes, Odysseus was able to use his leadership abilities to get to his beloved, Penelope.
Their next destined endeavor takes them to the land of the Lotos Eaters. The Lotos flower possesses powers which cause men to forget any thought they have of leaving the island. Odysseus, knowing of the Lotus’ special powers, orders his men to avoid the flowers. Three men took it upon themselves to taste the flower and were subsequently drug back to the ships kicking and screaming. Again, Odysseus’ intelli...
Upon the isle of Circe, the crew had been tasked under Eurylochos to discover the circumstances of the witch at the center of the island. But only Eurylochos returned to tell the tale of their capture, how Circe, “asked them to come in; they all followed her, in their innocence … but she put deadly drugs in the mess, to make them wholly forget their native land” (117). The rest of the crew gave into the temptation of the beautiful Circe, drawn into her house despite warned caution in their scouting. It also stands as a bit of irony that the man who would lead the crew into their eventual demise was the only one to stand strong and suspect that not everything was as they appeared with Circe. Among the lotus eaters, the crew was tasked with learning more about the island’s native people. But upon finding them the men, “tasted that honey-sweet fruit, they thought no more of coming back to us with news, but chose rather to stay … and chew their lotus, and [say] good-bye to home” (102). The lack of caution among Odysseus’s sailors leads to their loss of individualism as they attain a death of a sorts, unable to live as men and incapable of attaining kleos. These reckless and unwise actions taken by each of the sailors was done in their greed for an immortality through remembrance but ultimately provided nothing but their
“Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given,” (1.32-34) is a simple quote reminding us the entities in charge of all characters in the poem The Odyssey – the gods. Hubris, or excessive human pride, is most detested by the gods and likewise is most punishable by them. The Odyssey is a story about Odysseus and Telemachus, two heroes who throughout their adventures meet new people and face death many times. Telemachus goes to find his father after he learns from Athena that he is still alive. The two meet, and Odysseus attempts to go back to Ithaca after he was lost at sea, and on his way there becomes one of the most heroic characters in literature as we know it. Like all heroic characters, Odysseus began to display hubris as he learned how true of a hero he was. James Wyatt Cook, a historian and an expert on The Odyssey, wrote about how hubris can affect the characters that display it. He says, “Because Homer’s Odyssey is essentially comic, that episode [opened wind bag destroys ship] is only one of a series of setbacks Odysseus experiences before reaching his home in Ithaca and recovering his former kingdom and his family. Such, however, is not the case for those who display hubris with tragic outcomes.” (Cook 1) Initially, Odysseus learns about Aias who died as a cause of the excessive pride he portrays. Proteus warns Odysseus when he says, “…and Aias would have escaped doom, though Athena hated him, had he not gone widely mad and tossed outa word of defiance; for he said that in despite of the gods he escaped the great gulf of the sea, and Poseidon heard him…...
...s, a prophet, and Circe, a Nymph, that he would be the only one to survive the voyage home. First, Scylla takes and eats six of Odysseus’ men and after they stop on Helios’ Island, the men eat Helios’ cattle. He tries in every way he knows to keep his men alive, but they did not abstain themselves from eating the cattle, so they perish.
Picture this: a hero of great legends who travels to the underworld and back to get directions to his home from a blind prophet. It sounds like quite an impossible journey, but that is exactly what makes Odysseus all the more fascinating. The Odyssey, an epic poem orally transmitted by Homer, a Greek poet who wrote The Iliad, had to contain some variety of attributes that Greeks valued in a person. That one embodiment of what the Greeks found intriguing in a character is Odysseus. Odysseus is known as what is called an epic hero. An epic hero is a protagonist of a story that represents the most important attributes of a civilization. Odysseus, being based in ancient Greece, is the embodiment of intelligence, loyalty, and strength.
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.