odyssey essay cunning over strength

Cummings Guides Home.|.Contact This Site.. By Michael J. Cummings.© 2003 Type of Work.The Odyssey is an epic poem, a long narrative work about heroic exploits that is elevated in tone and highly formal in its language. It was composed in ancient Greek and transmitted orally before it was written down. Many modern translators present the Odyssey in prose, making it read like a novel. Time and Place of Composition.Homer composed The Odyssey between 900 and 800 BC, probably in Ionia, a Greek settlement on the western coast of present-day Turkey. Setting. Time: About 3,200 years ago in recorded history's infancy, when humankind's imagination peopled the known world with great heroes and villains and nature reflected the mood of the gods inhabiting the mountain tops, the seas, the forests, and the unseen worlds above and below. Places: Lands and seas in the Mediterranean region. The tale begins on an island in the Ionian Sea between southern Greece and southern Italy. Invocation of the Muse.The Odyssey recounts the adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus (Roman name: Ulysses) during his ten-year voyage home after the Trojan War. Homer begins with a one-paragraph invocation requesting the Muses to inspire him in the telling of his tale. Such an invocation was a convention in classical literature, notably in epics, from the time of Homer onward. In the invocation, Homer alludes to the heroics of Odysseus during the Trojan War. There, Odysseus fought valiantly and conceived the idea of presenting the Trojans a gift of a great wooden horse—a gift that resulted in triumph for the Greeks and death and destruction for the Trojans. Homer then begins telling the story..Author.Little specific information about the life of Homer exists. It is not even certain whether the writer of The Odyssey was one person or several persons. However, a tradition arose in.
Character Analysis(Click the character infographic to download.) Odysseus is brave, strong, handsome, wily, loyal, pious—and did we mention handsome? He's basically begging for a hey girl meme. ( Hey girl. I may have spent seven years with a goddess, but you still look divine to me.) So, what makes this paragon of perfection so darn perfect?Strong OdysseusFirst, he's a hard worker. This is man you want to invite over for pizza when you're moving, because you know he's going to be lifting that refrigerator all by himself. Menelaos tells us that no one of the Achaians labored as much as Odysseus labored and achieved (4.106); his friend Eurylochos says You are a hard, man, Odysseus. Your force is greater, your limbs never wear out. You must be made all of iron (12.279-80). It's not just that he's strong; he works harder than anyone else. He never asks his men to do anything that he won't do, and he actually asks more of himself. This quality makes him a good leader. He's not some slacker sitting on the couch bossing people around; he's right there splitting logs and climbing the rigging (or whatever you do on a ship) with his servants and companions. Eurylochos may complain about being overworked, but you can tell that he respects the guy. Angry OdysseusOdysseus's massive strength is useful if you're on his good side, but you really do not want to tick this guy off. We see his temper early on, when he can't help taunting Polyphemos: in the anger of my heart I cried to him: 'Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you who it was that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding, tell him that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities. Laertes is his father, and he makes his home on Ithaka' (9.500-505). The sailors might head straight off to update their wills, but we have to admire him: Odysseus isn't sneaking around leaving anonymous trolling comments on some.
Some critics dismiss Penelope as a paragon of marital fidelity — a serious and industrious character, a devoted wife and mother, but one who lacks the fascination and zest for life that some of Homer's immortal women display. However, Penelope is not a pasteboard figure. She is a complicated woman with a wry sense of destiny who weaves her plots as deftly as she weaves a garment. Penelope is in a very dangerous situation when the suitors begin invading her house and asking — and then demanding — her hand in marriage. Although the suitors abuse an important social tradition of hospitality, Penelope lacks the natural, social, and familial protections that would enable her to remove them from her house. Her son, Telemachus, has neither the maturity nor the strength to expel the invaders. Although unassuming, Penelope has a cunning that indicates she is a good mate for her wily husband. Antinous complains of it at the assembly in Book 2. He claims — rightly, by the way — that she has misguided the suitors for nearly four years, leading on each man with hints and promises but choosing no one. The story of the loom symbolizes the queen's clever tactics. For three years, Penelope worked at weaving a shroud for the eventual funeral of her father-in-law, Laertes. She claimed that she would choose a husband as soon as the shroud was completed. By day, the queen, a renowned weaver, worked on a great loom in the royal halls. At night, she secretly unraveled what she had done, amazingly deceiving the young suitors. Her ploy failed only when one of her servants eventually betrayed her and told the suitors what was happening. The contest of the bow and axes is another example of Penelope's guile; it also illustrates her wry sense of destiny. After Odysseus returns to Ithaca, the queen announces first to the visiting beggar, whom she suspects to be Odysseus, that she will hold a.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENELOPE IN HOMER’S ODYSSEY The time of ancient Greece seems like its own story in another world, one nothing like our own. Powerful gods and goddesses, brave warriors, mystical beings, and the mistreatment of women rule the plot. Except that women have been overlooked in our world for centuries. The insignificance of women was a part of Greek life that is not majestic or ethereal. In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer, Penelope develops into her own character during a time where women are prized as possessions more than people. Homer makes Penelope into her own person and not just an addition to her husband by his long absence and the troubles she must face on her own through difficult times. Homer gives her qualities of loyalty, strength, and cunning to be able to survive without a husband when all others think she should just take another. Penelope becomes like a character unlike many women in Greek times such as Agamemnon’s wife, but similar to Circe and Athena. She is turned into a woman of power by Homer. Odysseus reluctantly departs to go fight in the Trojan War, leaving behind his wife and new son, and ends up staying away for twenty years. Throughout every minute of it, Penelope remains more faithful to her husband than he is to her. She never submits to the whims of the suitors begging for her hand in marriage and only finds ways to make them leave her, while he enjoys the company of Circe and Calypso. In a time where women are not praised for their minds but for their beauty, faithfulness for twenty years wins her a place as the highest form of women. Agamemnon compares her to his wife and praises her as being the “mistress of her own heart,/ Penelope!” (XXIV.222-223) while his own wife “the adulteress,/ waited to stab her lord and king” (XXIV.225-226). From these statements, Agamemnon concludes that “the very gods themselves will sing.
Another powerful example of Odysseus's cunning is his outwitting of the suitors who have invaded his home and pestered his wife and plotted to kill his son.  Odysseus decides to enter his home at first disguised as a beggar in order to scope out the territory.  While there, he is abused by the suitors, who insult him and, in the worst case, throw a stool at him.  This section of The Odyssey is important because of the Greek rule of hospitality, which basically says that when a stranger asks for food or shelter in your home, you should treat him respectfully, feed him, clothe him, and do him no harm.  One rather amusing portion of this rule is that you are to do all of this before asking who he is or what his business is in coming to you.  In fact, in the strictest interpretations of this rule, you would feed and honor the guest for ten days before getting down to asking such questions.  A fabulous example of this can be found in the myth of Bellerophon, who was sent to deliver a letter to a King--and the letter asked the King to kill Bellerophon!  Well, his host treated Bellerophon like an honored guest for ten days before even reading the letter, and by that time, killing him was out of the question.  The rule has its roots in the myth of Baucis and Philamon.  Zeus and Hermes visit a town disguised as beggars and ask for food at each home, only to be turned away and taunted.  Only Baucis and Philamon treat them to what little they have and are rewarded, while the rest of the town is destroyed.  This myth led to the saying, The stranger is sacred to Zeus.  In fact, one of the suitors is so upset when a stool is thrown at the disguised Odysseus that he says this to the assailant. Another example of this tradition is the way Odysseus is taken in and treated honorably by the Phaeacians when he lands upon their shores after Poseidon destroys his raft.  It is only after.