I have a couple of questions

[kylie1313]

If you know the answers to any of these please help me.

What do Odysseus, Penelope, the suitors, Achilles, and Telemachus symbolize?

What is the relationship between a son and his father in ancient Greece?

How have the suitors sinned and broken the most sacred laws of man and the gods?

What is the cause of human suffering according to Zeus?

Why is Odysseus thought of as the archetypal epic hero?

What are the 3 plots to the Odyssey?


Im really bad at finding the underlying meanings in stories so its really hard for me to do an assignment on this. If you have any suggestions on a good sub topic to write an essay about on The Odyssey please let me know. Im thinking about how women affect Odysseus but Im not sure if I know enought to make it at least 3 pages. Thanks for the help.

[kylie1313]

How does Odysseus live, fight, breathe, and journey form the seat of his soul and is this what protects him? ( I dont understand what this is asking)

Why do his men get killed while he survives?

Who plans Odysseus' escape and safe retrun to the world from Calypsos island?

What is Penelopes strategy to hold off the suitors and her strategy to reveal the true identitity of the beggar?

[HayleySOAD]

How have the suitors sinned and broken the most sacred laws of man and the gods?

They have broken the rules of hospitality (Xenia). Xenia involved hosts and guests acting in a particular way to each other. The host was expected to provide hospitality to those who requested it before asking any questions as to who the guest was. They were then expected to give a gift. Guests were expected to be respectful to their hosts and act in an appropriate manner. The suitors are clearly taking advantage. Zeus is the God of hospitality.

[HayleySOAD]

What are the 3 plots to the Odyssey?

There is Odysseus' journey, Telemachus' story, and Penelope's story.

[HayleySOAD]

Who plans Odysseus' escape and safe retrun to the world from Calypsos island?

Calypso was purposefully keeping Odysseus on her island in the hope that he would eventually forget all thought of home and would marry her instead. After an appeal by Athene (Odysseus' patron god), Zeus sends Hermes to tell Calypso to let him go. Calypso says that Odysseus can leave, but that she will not help him make the boat to help him home. Odysseus builds the boat, but i believe thatCalypso provides tools and stuff like food as she doesnt want him to come to harm. When Odysseus sets off from Calypso's home he is ship-wrecked by Poseidon in Phaeacia. He is transported home to Ithaca by the Phaeacians.

[HayleySOAD]

What is Penelopes strategy to hold off the suitors and her strategy to reveal the true identitity of the beggar?

One particular plan was saying that when she finished her weaving of a shroud, she would pick a suitor. By day she weaved, by night she unpicked the weaving, thus prolonging her time. This was eventually discovered though.

She also played with the suitors by flirting with them and also saying that she didnt want them there. She toyed with their emotions.

The final task was that she set up a series of axes and provided a bow and arrows. She told the suitors that the first to shoot through all axes first time after stringing the bow would be the one she married. What she didnt tell them was that the bow was very difficult to string and that only Odysseus was able to do it.

Odysseus was already at home by this point, but was disguised as a beggar. He managed to complete the task. He reveals himself to be Odysseus and kills all the suitors. Penelope makes sure that Odysseus really is Odysseus by lying and saying that their bed has been moved. Odysseus is angry at this news as he built the bed in such a way that one of the legs was actually a tree and he is annoyed that the bed has been damaged. Only Odysseus would have known the nature of the bed, and so Penelope knows that Odysseus is really Odysseus.

[Chocoholic8a]

In the book what does this mean "how the dirty hog's tongue doth run like an old kitchen wife! I should like to give him a good right and left, and knock out all the teeth from his jaw as if he were a sow in the growing corn. Quoted by Iros the begger Odysseus fights in book18?