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123 essays on character analysis
A&p character analysis essay
123 essay character analysis
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Vicious predator women, tempting songs, and wax in his men's ears. Odysseus and his men face many obstacles on their way home as well as the three men from “O Brother Where Art Thou.” Each of these sources also display similarities and differences. Some versions of the text are more compelling than others. In Homer’s text, he states “she bids us, first, avoid the dangerous song” which explains that there are tempting women singing to Odysseus and his squadron. Similarly, in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” the three men heard the Sirens singing through the woods which coerced the men to follow the dangerous song. Homer also talks about the Sirens stating “of the sweet Sirens and their flowery meads” alike in the movie the men discovered the Sirens in the woods.(O Brother, Where Art Thou?) The author, Homer, also states “Odysseus, chief by ev’ry tongue o hither steer thy bark” conveying that the Sirens were calling Odysseus to them while in the movie, the men went to the Sirens. As well as portraying similarities, the text and the movie clip also display differences. …show more content…
Some of these differences include the men driving a truck rather that rowing a boat. In the text, Homer states “My gallant bark approached the Siren’s Isle” while in the movie clip, the three men are driving a truck when they hear the Sirens. Another difference is in the movie, the men went to the Sirens, while in the text, the Sirens approached Odysseus and his squadron stating “avoid the dangerous song.” Lastly, a third difference between the text and the video is that Odysseus fills his men's ears with wax. “A waxen cake, chafed it and moulded it between my palms…with that liniment I fill’d the ears of my companions, man by man” explains how Odysseus stuffed wax in his men's ears contrasting to “O Brother Where Art Thou” in which none of the men have wax in their
The Sirens are personated as lethal and menacing. In the Sirens’ song it says “..the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons.” That insinuates how Sirens entice people into their own death. In Odysseus’ standpoint, he hoped to get away from them stating,”the heart inside me throbbed to listen longer”,signifying he could not bare to hear them croon longer.
This is the main difference between the songs of the Bards and Odysseus telling his story: the emotional component. Odysseus can add depth, as well as breadth to the tale of "The Great Odysseus", through his own firsthand account of events. Odysseus is sharing his thoughts, emotions, and fallacies with the Phaeacians. While Odysseus does compound upon his story further than the Bards can, they do share one similarity: persuasion and account of the audience. There is certainly some tweaking of the misfortunes that Odysseus suffers. Not denying the difficulties of the voyage, the emphasis on the hardships works in Odysseus's favor as it draws sympathy from the Phaeacians, thus compelling them further to aide him on a swift return to Ithaca. Odysseus probably plays "the sympathy card" because he knows that once the Phaeacians learn of Poseidon's dislike of him, the Phaeacians may be less inclined to lend him their aid. This understanding of his audience's higher loyalties, and the art of persuasion influences Odysseus in portraying himself in a sympathetic manner. Odysseus purposefully casts himself as the unfortunate victim of the wrath of a God, and as a devoted, suffering husband who yearns to return
In The Odyssey, Homer conveys a mixed message about Odysseus’s crew. At times, they seem loyal, whereas other scenes reveal them as disloyal. Homer does this to help center the attention on how Odysseus can fall victim to temptation and stand up to take control of his crew. The critical moments where Odysseus and his crew are in disagreement are significant because they demonstrate how Odysseus is epic, yet still human and flawed.
Through these voyages certain parallels are drawn concerning Odysseus and Telemachos: the physical journeys, the mental preparations they have produced, and the resulting change in emotional makeup. These play an immense role in the way the story is set up, due to the purpose of each character's journey, their personal challenges, and the difficulties that surround them.
...seus also helps shapes our perspective that despite his heroic traits such as bravery and decisiveness, he also holds many questionable qualities. Atwood’s appropriation of “The Odyssey” expresses many of the moral ambiguities of Odysseus’ actions that are expressed throughout Homer’s original text.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
The image of seductresses is a recurring motif in The Odyssey. These women are a temptation to Odysseus. They attempt to keep Odysseus from accomplishing his goal: his homecoming. Circe is a bewitching goddess. She entices Odysseus’ crew into her palace with her enchanting voice. However, after she feeds them, she promptly turns them into pigs. Circe also succeeds in enticing Odysseus; he stays with her one year as her lover. It is so long that his crew declares that it is “madness” (326). They say that it is “high time” that Odysseus thinks of his homeland (326). Later on, Odysseus and his crew encounter the sirens. Knowing the danger they pose, Odysseus has all his men’s ears stopped up with wax. However, Odysseus wishes to hear their song; so he asks his crew to tie him to the mast. The song of the sirens is so sweet and enticing. Their “ravishing voices” almost make Odysseus forget his desire to return home (349). His heart “throbbed” to listen longer; he signals for his men to let him go free. The grea...
Odysseus uses his brain to sail past the Sirens without being entranced by their sweet song. A Siren is a bird-woman who bewitches everyone that approaches. The Siren women sing a seductive song. Their song has many powers. As Nugent says “as in the days of the musician Orpheus, music still has power to soothe the savage beast, to ally anxiety, and to connect with the divine through contemplation” (Nugent 45-54). Circe tells Odysseus, “There is no homecoming for the man who draws near them unawares and hears the Siren’s voices” (Homer XII, 40). . Odysseus follows the advice Circe gave him to put beeswax in his men’s ears so they will not be entranced. Odysseus then tells his men “but she instructed me alone to hear their voices…”(XII, 160), when, truthfully, Circe states, “But if you wish to listen yourself, make them bind you hand and foot on board and place you upright by the housing of the mast, with the rope’s ends lashed to the mast itself”(XII, 49). In this way, Odysseus is being selfish only wishes to know the Siren’s sing so he will...
Richardson complains that Homer has broken the contract between narrator and reader when he says or implies that one thing will happen, then has something else happen instead. This is not Homer being a bad writer, or misleading maliciously, or doing something wrong, this is Richardson acting as a bad reader and assuming things that he should not be. Richardson assumes, wrongfully so, that when the story starts off and the reader discovers that it is about Odysseus, that the story will start off on Calypso’s island. When it starts off on Olympus, he also complains that the conversation doesn’t even start on Odysseus, but on Orestes, who killed his own mother for the murder of his father. This start of the conversation actually gives the reader a time-line to think about. Richardson is writing in a way that almost seems to assume that the readers/hearers of Homer’s Odyssey have no foreknowledge of any sort of mythos at all, this is of course not true. Ancient Greeks were well versed in the mythos of their time, especially high-born Greeks, those who to seem smart sang or recited Homer’s epics from memory. The stories themselves were quite common, leading one to believe that not having things hidden would lead to boredom and the wish for something new. That is what Homer
In book eight of Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is on the island of the Phaeacians and is waiting to return home to Ithaca. Meanwhile, Alcinous, the Phaeacian king, has arranged for a feast and celebration of games in honor of Odysseus, who has not yet revealed his true identity. During the feast, a blind bard named Demodocus sings about the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles at Troy. The song causes Odysseus to start weeping, so Alcinous ends the feast and orders the games to begin. During dinner after the games, Odysseus asks Demodocus to sing about the Trojan horse and the sack of Troy. This song too causes Odysseus to break down and cry. Homer uses a dramatic simile to describe the pain and sorrow that Odysseus feels as he recalls the story of Troy.
In Homer's Odyssey the tone is cautious, but later alters to determination. Homer's tone of cautiousness is shown when Odysseus' "sliced an ample wheel of beeswax down into pieces...I stopped the ears of my comrades one by one." Odysseus' carefully embedded beeswax into the ears of his crew members to block the singing voices of the Sirens. His tone then shifts into determination when Odysseus' and his crew members encounter the Sirens and "flung themselves at the oars and rowed on harder", emphasizing the danger of the creatures.
...y sirens represent half-women, half-bird creatures who lived on an island. They used to sing in beautiful voices to lure sailors off their course. When Odysseus was sailing by the siren's island, he made the rest of his men plug up their ears and ties him to the mainmast. This way, he got to hear the beautiful sound of their voice without being driven to suicide. In this story the women weeping over Lautaro were compared to the sirens, and some sailors going to tie themselves to the mainmast in an attempt to mimic Odysseus. There is a contrast of these stories with the quotes from the villagers.
The curiosity between both Odysseus and Telemachus was displayed clearly throughout the epic. Odysseus is an intelligent man and lives by his wiles, along with his courage. Although he is self-disciplined, his curiosity sometimes gets the best of him. Because of his own curiousness and hubris, Odysseus has gotten himself into trouble, almost costing him his life on multiple occasions. It is this intellectual curiosity that drives him to hear the Sirens’ song, wait for the Cyclops to return, and journey to Circe. When Eurylochus returned from Circe’s home after she turned the other men into swine, he warned Odysseus of what had happened, but he said “Lead me back by the same way that you came” (238) and proceeded to go to the deceiving woman. Although Odysseus’ curiosity may find him in death’s ...
Within his journey Odysseus is faced with several dangerous instances which requires cunning tactics and decisive action. His will to survive is only strengthened by the thought of his family which he reaffirms by stating, “There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”(Homer) The love waiting in Ithaca is what motivates him and enables him to face life threatening beast like Scylla and Charybdis. (Homer) Furthermore, this yearning to reunite with Penelope grants him the temperance to restrain his rage as he watches the suitors infest his home and handle all of his possessions. (Homer). As well as, Penelope the whole time has been enduring Odysseus’s arrival as she has been waiting a decade since no man can compare, and even confirms her stance, “How I wish chaste Artemis would give me a death so soft, and now, so I would not go on in my heart grieving all my life, and longing for love of a husband excellent in every virtue, since he stood out among the Achaeans.” (Homer) The love present in “The Odyssey” is a positive one. Concluding with the reuniting of a family and the massacre of enemies, Homer displays the importance in how humans overcome the seemingly impossible when both sides of the marriage maintain
The tone in the story is very different in the 2 parts. In part 1, it could be said that the tone is one of excitement and danger, because it is following Odysseus on his endeavors against the ocean and the gods. In part 2, the tone could be one of sadness because Odysseus must disguise himself as a beggar, and he cannot reveal his identity to his family and they cannot be reunited. They tone was also kind of mysterious, because the readers wonder what will happen when he converses with his family in disguise, because the reader knows about the disguise but his family has no idea who it is.