Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, written roughly 3000 years ago, demonstrates what the common people’s mindsets were like during ancient Greek times. On the contrary, The Penelopiad, a loose adaptation of Homer’s story written in the 21st century, brings more modern viewpoints to its characters and central themes. By virtue of the vastly different time periods in which these two pieces were written, their portrayals of the main characters contrast greatly; notably with Homer’s legendary character Odysseus. Though Odysseus may share a few similar qualities in the two books, Homer portrays him as a heroic and admirable character while Atwood brings a more modern viewpoint to light. In The Odyssey, Odysseus’s most distinct traits are his cleverness …show more content…
His strength is greatly demonstrated with Penelope’s test for the suitors. Odysseus is the only man with enough muscle to string the bow, with his son Telemachus coming the closest. After he reveals his identity, Odysseus slaughters all the men in the room. This proves he is undoubtedly the strongest of everyone who desired Penelope. Another time Odysseus proves his strong physical abilities is when he’s on Calypso’s island. After being stuck there for a long ten years, he finally gets the chance to escape, builds himself a raft, and flees. The raft must have taken a considerable amount of strength for one person to construct, and he did it in a mere four days. While Homer portrays Odysseus as an intelligent, strong, and admirable character, Atwood gives a more realistic and modern perspective on his different attributes. Both works do depict him as clever, however in The Penelopiad, his intelligence further exposes his deceit and manipulative qualities. People speak of him describing him as a sly thief who cheats his way through everything. This trait of his is well explained in chapter six: “the younger men made jokes about him—‘Don’t gamble with Odysseus, the friend of Hermes,’ they said. ‘You’ll never win.’ This was like saying he was a cheat and a
Twenty years of action and adventure, defeating creatures, surviving, and just trying to get back home. In The Odyssey by Homer, the hero Odysseus takes an arduous journey navigating through raging waters and defeating strenuous creatures in order to get back home with his crew to his wife and son in Ithaca. Odysseus goes through a variety of islands on the way, each including many characters he needs to overcome. Being clever and cunning in difficult situations with the Cyclops, Scylla, Sirens, Charybdis, and finally the suitors will lead to success and survival in the future.. The cleverness of Odysseus is first supplied when he brilliantly guides his men from the danger of being devoured by the unprepossessing beast, to safety
The Odyssey, which features the legendary hero Odysseus, is one of the most well-known and significant pieces of literature in the Western canon. The epic poem, written by the ancient Greek poet Homer, describes Odysseus' ten-year journey home from the Trojan War, during which he endures many hardships that put his grit, wit and moral fiber to the test. Odysseus faces many challenges on his journey to his homeland Ithaca and his wife Penelope, including the wrath of the gods, the seductions of women, the perils of the sea, and the threats of his foes. These obstacles each called for him to exhibit certain virtues and abilities. For instance, he must use his intelligence to outwit the giant and escape his grasp, so his fight with the Cyclops
Odysseus went through a lot of adventures. And through good and bad time he almost always is getting out of the situation. Through all the adventures he showed an “Epic Hero Trait” and that is clever. He always makes a plan or decides something important. He got through the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and now even his own home.
Here he was a young man who with a brashness and recklessness that could only come to fruition during youth but he had the skills and talent to back up his arrogance. Throughout his adventure in the Odyssey, he defeats monsters of immeasurable strength through wit and cunning. His willingness to take on any challenge in order to further his goals and his immense intelligence is philosophy that I strive to mirror. Odysseus stood out from other heroes of his era because is that his victories were never won through thoughtless attacks.
I believe Odysseus and the cyclops have equal blame for what happened. I believe Odysseus is to blame for his rudeness towards the cyclops and for trespassing onto his land and taking his food. I also believe the cyclops is to blame as well for his outrageous behavior and for well, eating several of Odysseus's men in response to them trespassing. So in all honesty I can't blame one more than the other. In other words, that is why I can't say for certain who I would be cheering more for.
The odyssey, an epic told by Homer in ancient greece, has many major themes following odysseus’s adventures. While Odysseus is sentenced to never return home after the Trojan War. He is overcoming challenges to return home to his wife penelope and his son Telemachus. Throughout the story major themes of loyalty, hospitality and vengeance are hidden within the plot. The story continues to show his heroic side with three major traits.
Odysseus is most definitely very clever in the way he can think through a circumstance and execute a plan or mission. An example showing Odysseus’s cleverness is when he ran into an incident with the Cyclops. In order to save his men safely from the Cyclops, Odysseus gave the Cyclops wine in order to move past it. It was key that Odysseus did this at the right time or else the plan would not have worked properly. The wine made the Cyclops drunk allowing the men to poke out the Cyclops’ eyes.
He was able to defeat great beasts with his men on the long twenty year voyage. Odysseus was loyal to his wife Penelope even when he had other women trying to go after him. He wouldn’t run away from danger he would go to it. As stated before, Odysseus was smart; he was able to outwit the cyclops, Polyphemus by getting him drunk and blinding him. After he had gotten Polyphemus drunk and blinded him, he
The Odyssey by Homer revolves around the character, Odysseus, and his ten-year struggle to return home after the Trojan War. As the epic’s idol, he displays the combination of a clever, handsome, and courageous man popular among the mortals as well as the gods. Essentially, he embodies the ideals of the ancient Greek culture, being adorned with many favored characteristics of the era. However, an intriguing aspect of Odysseus lies in his personality. As the protagonist, he does not manifest the entirety of a stereotypical hero because Odysseus has a fatal flaw—his arrogance.
Odysseus’s traits help him achieve his goal of returning to his home. Odysseus and his men have a lot of willpower to continue traveling after some dangerous and life risking experiences with cannibals, lotus-eaters, cyclops and many more creatures that could of killed Odysseus and his whole crew. Odysseus's confidence and epic hero traits only increase as the story goes on, his confidence in his men increase as he starts noticing how strong and powerful his men can be, and also shows confidence in
One way that Odysseus shows cleverness is when he is able to get his men out of dangerous situations. Two stories in which Odysseus uses his cleverness to get him and his men out of dangerous situations are in “Scylla and Charybdis”, and “The Cyclops”. Another way how Odysseus shows his cleverness is he deceives others to his advantage. In “The Cyclops” he deceives Polyphemus when he tricks him into thinking his name is Nohbody, and this helps him to escape the island and not get caught. Cleverness is a trait in The Odyssey that helped Odysseus to get him and his men out of dangerous situations, and cleverness also helped deceive others to Odysseus’
In the book The Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus, is a man who is loved and respected by many. In the beginning of the book, we learn that Odysseus has left on a journey and, since it has been many years since his departure, many people assume that he has passed. On his journey, he portrays his many traits, not all of them being good ones either. Some of his good traits include his cunning, bravery, and hard work ethic. On the other hand, his negative traits are his excessive pride, immense curiosity, and rather large temper.
Odysseus an epic hero What makes a person an epic hero? An epic hero is someone who possesses courage, strength, and have a desire to achieve immortality through heroic actions. The only ones that are considered heroes are those who are recognized for saving the day or for doing something heroic to the world. Many is considered heroes for only some are remembered like those who made a great change. For example Odysseus is an epic hero.
His intelligence and cleverness serves him well as he has the ability to strive away from unwanted situations successfully. His loyalty and faithfulness is what motivates him to get home to both his family and people of Ithaca. As well as his bravery and courage which brings him to efficiently complete his expedition? If deprived from all these significant qualities, Odysseus would not have received the title of a hero. Nevertheless, due to him appealing to all the positive and essential traits, Odysseus is known to be one of the greatest and most powerful epic heroes introduced in the art of
The Odyssey and Ulysses were meant to be the same character written by two different individuals. Both individuals encountered obstacles at some point in their lives. Odysseus and Ulysses were both considered a hero in today’s society along with their similar characteristics. The heroic qualities and themes presented in both pieces of the literature work emphasized the similarity between the two characters along with their differences.