...Penelope: The Strongest of All Although Homer’s The Odyssey portrays the brave adventures of Odysseus, his wife, Penelope is a brave and clever hero in her own patient and loyal ways. Like Odysseus, Penelope keeps her cool in scary situations, and uses her bravery and wits to find a way out of it. When the suitors invaded her own home during Odysseus’s disappearance, Penelope kept her bravery and outsmarted them multiple times. They all wanted to steal Odysseus's life in his kingdom along with his wife, but they didn't know that she was stronger than they thought. Penelope tricked them by promising them that she would choose one of them to marry once she had finished Odysseus's death shroud, but what they didn't know was that...
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...Have you ever read a superhero book? The superhero is always a strong guy with big muscles right? Well I think in Homer’s the Odyssey, Penelope is the true hero. She is the true hero because, she waits 20 years for Odysseus, she tricks her suitors into thinking she’s doing a blanket for about two months, and she makes a challenge to string a bow and arrow, and shoot it through 12 axes. One of the reasons I think Penelope is a hero is because for 20 years she waits for Odysseus dealing with intense sadness and depression, my reasoning behind this is that from the book Eumaeus the Swineherd said, “Always with her the wretched nights and days also waste her away with her weeping.” Another example that she deals with sadness and depression is that after her father left, her own son, Telemachos, sea sets sail to find his father without telling her. For a while she lost both the men she loves so dearly. The last example of her going through her depression is that at one point she prayed to the god Artemis, asking him why he just doesn’t take her life right now. That is one of the reasons I think she a hero....
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...The Odyssey, written by Homer, is a series of poems that describe the heroics of Odysseus following the events of The Iliad. Throughout the books, there are many characters who show the features of a hero, who is someone who overcomes an impossible task or foe, even themselves, and can be occasionally given recognition for their feats. Two characteristics that a great hero and a great leader need are caution and cunning, and none show these better than Penelope and Odysseus. Penelope shows caution and Odysseus shows cunningness, who show these traits the best, which shows that great leaders need to be cautious and cunning. Caution, as shown by Penelope, illustrates the concept that great heroes need to be cautious. In book twenty-three, lines 94-100, Penelope is in distress, trying to think of how to approach the stranger who...
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...Malala Yousafzai and Penelope have many things in common, but chiefly their dedication and great intelligence shine through. In The Odyssey by Homer, there are many times where the suitors try courting penelope, but every single time she refuses them for twenty years until Odysseus comes back home (Homer 16:420). Her dedication to remaining loyal to her husband is astounding. Correspondingly, even after getting shot in the head for fighting for women’s education, Malala Yousafzai, “appeared in a video announcing that she was taking her campaign for girl’s education global (Baker 1). Most people would be silenced by a bullet to the head, but not Malala Yousafzai. She continued her campaign and took it to an even larger scale which is something...
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...Tom Rath says, “You cannot be anything you want to be - but you can be a whole lot more of who you already are.” Rath is the creator of Strengthsfinder, a program helps people find and understand their strengths. For example, my strengths include: Competition, Significance, Achiever, Futuristic, and Focus. Throughout our study of Greek culture, especially in The Odyssey, these are very common traits. These are traits commonly seen in athletes, warriors, and leaders such as Odysseus. My vase includes images such as those, along with images that connect to The Odyssey and my own life. Focus: Lens & Penelope While creating my vase, I incorporated both Greek culture and some modern-day styles. For example, I chose to incorporate a camera lens...
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...war. Embarking on his vast journey, he had left his faithful wife and newly born child to fight in a vicious war. The Odyssey is a Greek epic which captures the boundless journey of Odysseus, as he strives to return to Ithaca after battling in the Trojan War. Homer had been a prominent writer who had expressed the vast legends and myths of Greek gods and goddesses and captured Odysseus’ endless adventure, the challenges and temptations he had experienced throughout his journey, and the reflection of his most exceptional and imperfect qualities. As Odysseus had embarked on an endless journey filled with misery and agony, to battle in the Trojan War, he had been greatly praised and celebrated by many Ithacans and his homeland. However, although Odysseus had been greatly praised and portrayed as an outstanding individual and king throughout Homer’s epic, his actions and desires had undoubtedly reflected the worst qualities and aspects of his character. As Odysseus had embarked on his vast and extensive journey from Ithaca, he had been disloyal and faithless to his wife Penelope, who had been sincere, waiting years for his arrival...
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...The Appropriation and Contextualisation of The Maids Written by Mary Gizzi for Preliminary Extension English Ever since the beginnings of ancient civilisation, literature has been used to express unique concepts, cultures, and historical events. As the world we live in continues to change, our ideas & values must adjust to our transforming environment, and as a result of this, the meaning of older works of literature may become lost. To overcome this, earlier texts are appropriated. This means that the old stories and texts are transformed into a new context, which leads to new ideas forming and an introduction of differing perspectives. Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ was written almost 3000 years ago, and is considered to be part of canonical literature....
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...There are plenty of different ways in Homer’s The Odyssey that he portrays women in the epic. During this time period, women did not have many rights and everything was left to the men. In Homer’s poem, not only do women portray beauty, but they also portray power. Most women that are read about in this epic are usually a goddess that have great beauty or mystical powers. Homer also portrays them as smarter and wiser as men. Some of the women are evil but there are also some that are good. There are many women that portray power in this epic and the most powerful are Penelope, Athena, and Circe. One very important woman in the epic was Penelope. Not only was she Odysseus’s main goal to get back to, but she was also his motivation. Penelope was not...
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...THE ODYSSEY Is a good leader classified as one who personally gains a lot or one who benefits his or her community at large? After fighting in the brutal Trojan War, Odysseus travels the sea in hopes of returning to Ithaca, his homeland, and his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus. Homer’s The Odyssey reveals the struggles and obstacles Odysseus and his men face traveling home. As prophesized, twenty years later, Odysseus returns to a devastated Ithaca, alone, penniless and unrecognizable. Odysseus has hubris, a flaw that costs him, as well his men, excessive troubles. Odysseus does not learn from his and others’ past mistakes, again leading him into traps that could have easily been avoided. Odysseus constantly puts his men in harm’s way for selfish purposes. For these reasons, Odysseus is an incompetent leader, and therefore should be criticized. Odysseus has hubris. This excessive pride and arrogance leads Odysseus and his men into difficult situations that would not have otherwise arisen. Towards the beginning of Homer’s epic, Odysseus narrowly escapes from a Cyclops’ cave. In triumphant victory, Odysseus taunts the Cyclops, Polyphemus. His men advise him against further agitating Polyphemus after the Cyclops starts throwing massive boulders at their ship; however, Odysseus displays hubris and does not listen. ‘Godsake, Captain! Why bait the beast again? Let him alone!’ ‘Aye He’ll smash our timbers and our heads together!’ / I would not heed them...
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...a cycle and is repeated with different social and cultural references throughout the world. Furthermore, Leeming explains that, “the monomyth itself is an expression of the journey of the hero figure, of our journey through physical and psychic life, and of the evolutionary path of humanity to full consciousness” (Leeming). Homer’s use of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth in the Odyssey seen with Odysseus, the hero and main character, provides a great structure throughout the epic in several ways. To begin, the monomyth in the Odyssey can be divided into 11 stages of the hero journey. The first stage that structures Homer’s epic is birth or the ordinary world. Odysseus is born to his father Laertes in Greece under no distinguished ancestry to boast of. Rasovsky stated, As Odysseus grew to be a young boy he showed signs of his talents which included archery (Rasovsky). Going further on with Rasovsky’s findings, Odysseus was intelligent, clever, and exhibited strength through his appearance (Rasovsky). In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s ordinary world is on the peaceful island of Ithaca. Odysseus is the well-loved and respected king of the island. He has a wife, Penelope, whom he is madly in love with. Homer creates the birth and ordinary world of Odysseus to establish a pedigree, meaning how special he is, in order to foreshadow his destiny later on in the epic. The next stage of the monomyth is the call to adventure. Joseph Campbell explained this stage to represent the character’s survival...
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...The Odyssey Haleigh Pavy O’ Brother where art thou is a great representation of the Odyssey. It shows great representation of the characters and mood and also of each other. It turns a fiction epic to a real life story. The Odyssey is a epic about how this king named Odysseus went over seas to the Trojan War. He was there for ten years, on his journey back he got cursed by a cyclops, he got all his men killed and he got stuck on circes island for seven years. Then after twenty years of being gone he finally returns home to suitors, impersonators, and he returns disguised as a beggar. O’ Brother where art thou is about how three escaped prisoners go off to find “treasure”. Everette who represents Odysseus really just wants to get home with...
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...Women in Greek culture during Homer’s time were considered; to be subservient and docile while the men were considered to be strong and powerful. However, the role and personality of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, in the epic The Odyssey is not the image of a weak woman. Athena is just as strong and as powerful as men in protecting and guiding Odysseus and Telemachus throughout the epic. The paragon of the Greek woman back in Homer’s time was someone who was weak willed, subservient, and overtly emotional. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus is a suitable example as she is docile and a damsel in distress type figure. During the long absence of her husband, Penelope is trapped with the suitors, forever chasing after her. While she despises the suitors in her house, she has no control over her...
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...makes his story more relatable and believable (especially during the time period). In my opinion, Penelope is the most prototypically Greek woman in The Odyssey. She is faithful, witty, and intelligent. Unlike someone like Clytemnestra, who often cheats on her husband and even conspires to murder him, Penelope is extremely loyal to her husband, even after an absence of twenty years. Even with the offers of many suitors, she still remains faithful to Odysseus. Penelope’s handling of her suitors by promising she would only marry after she completed a burial shroud for her father-in-law (which she will never finish), shows that not only is she unusually faithful to her husband (an “ideal” trait), she is resourceful and intelligent. Furthermore, Penelope’s decision to “test” Odysseus to see if he was being truthful about his identity shows that Penelope is not stupid. Throughout both The Iliad and The Odyssey there are numerous occasions of Gods or others taking on the identities of others in order to fool them. Penelope does not fall for this, making sure Odysseus truly is who he says he is by asking him to move the bed (it cannot move). I think what sets Penelope apart is that she truly is unusually faithful to her husband. Combined with her cunningness and intelligence, Penelope represents the “ideal” woman of not only her time, but our time as well. It is clear that Homer’s representation of ideal womanhood is still an enduring standard that women are expected to meet today...
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...In Homer’s The Odyssey, Homer presents a perplexing and complex dilemma revolving around the ambiguity and problematic language used to describe the ideology of justice and vengeance. Moreover, it is the returning of equivalent harm for harm that seems to run through the heart of the archaic Greek culture that allows for crimes to merge with and become their own punishment. The relationship between crime and punishment is a tight linkage that seems to be arranged by Homer in an attempt to justify the moral positions as well as the actions of many major characters throughout The Odyssey. Distinctively, the role of justice and vengeance can be exhibited in the interactions between Polyphemus, Odysseus, Poseidon and the suitors. The conflict...
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...Odysseus of Ithaca: Famed or Fraud? Homer’s Odyssey tells the tale of the Trojan War hero Odysseus’s return home to his land of origin, Ithaca. Homer describes Odysseus as being one of, or possibly the greatest hero in all of Greece’s history. He is characterized as being a fearless, heroic man, who, with divine assistance, bests even the greatest monsters, and overcomes the most troublesome and life-threatening situations that he encounters, or the gods throw at him. However, if not for the assistance given to him by Athena, or any other divine figure, Odysseus’s journey would most likely have not worked out in his favor as it did, and he most likely would have perished within the very first books of The Odyssey. If divine assistance is what gave Odysseus his spark, courage and abilities, then are his abilities really justified? Who is the real Odysseus of Ithaca? Throughout many instances of The Odyssey, Odysseus is seen as this “almighty figure of excellence,” that can “never be beat or conquered.” However, despite the recognition that Odysseus deserves for accomplishing most of his feats, most of the work and assistance given to him was crafted by the goddess Athena; who constantly monitors Odysseus’s every move and protects him throughout the course of the tale. For example, on page 175 of the text, when Odysseus confronts the Phaecian princess Nausicaa, Athena personally makes him appear less menacing and worn. By doing this, Athena guaranteed that Odysseus would...
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