Odysseus as leader

Is Odysseus a good leader who is just cursed by the gods, or is he a bad leader who causes his own problems and the loss of his crew? Explain, using examples from the text to support your answer.

Where are you from? your country? your parents?

Today in Griffin humanities we had a good discussion about book 16 and the factors that shape identity, and I'd like to provide a forum to consider it more fully. Simply put, why does Telemachus need to understand who Odysseus is in order to know who he himself is? How do our families (parents, siblings, family legacies) shape our sense of ourselves?

And, particularly considering the growing popularity of options like adoption, egg donation and surrogacy in our world today, how much is your identity defined by your genetic material and how much is it defined by how you're raised? What does the case of Telemachus suggest on the one hand, but also, what do you think?

How much of the story is real?

As we all know odysseus is quite the trickster, and quite the story teller. during this story do you think that odysseus is telling the story to make himself look better to pheacians?

There are similes... but then there are EPIC similes.....

Homer loves his similes.They are found throughout the Odyssey. Pick one of your favorite epic similes and write an analysis of it. What does it mean? How does it illustrate a point or describe a character's personality? What does it tell us about Greek society?

Through A Glass Darkly: Or Why Odysseus is Me

Did you ever have an experience in which you really, really wanted to see or hear something but knew it would be a bad idea? Or perhaps you were "starving" but the only food available was "forbidden fruit"? Did you ever have a dilemma in life's journey in which either choice involved a serious cost? Did you ever enjoy a good time so much that you lost track of time and one year had already passed you by (as in Humanities class)? In what ways can Odysseus' journey and the obstacles he faces and overcomes be a metaphor for life?

Play that funky music...

We've seen several examples of the power of music in the epic so far. Based on the way music affects characters and the way the bards are treated, what kinds of inferences can you make about the role of music in Homer's universe?

Identity (or, Who Was That Masked Wo/man?)

Identity and kleos (glory) are central to Greek culture. We see this in the epic when Odysseus taunts Polyphemus by revealing his name, and in the many epithets that identify characters by their defining characteristics or their lineage.

Yet in the Odyssey, some characters choose to mask their identities at crucial moments. Athena disguises herself at every turn, assuming many different forms. Odysseus, too, chooses to withhold his identity strategically at times (on the Phaeacians' island in books 6-8, while playing a trick on Polyphemus in book 9, upon his return to Ithaca in book 13).

What factors determine identity in the Odyssey? What does the epic suggest about the significance of identity and of disguise?

The Guest-Host Relationship

Which characteres in the Odyssey act as a perfect example of the guest-host relationship and how?

What are we missing?

Some sections of Humanities are skipping over the parts of the epic that focus on Telemachus and only reading the parts focusing on Odysseus. What might they be missing? How do the Telemachus sections complement the Odysseus sections?

Is This the Face that Launched A Thousand Ships?

In Book Four of the Odyssey Helen, the most famous woman of the ancient world, whose beauty triggered the Trojan War, is now safely at home with her (first) husband Menelaus. Ten years after the Trojan War, how is she doing? What would Dr. Phil say about her marriage? What about her "drug habit"?

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

Zeus complains in Book I of the Odyssey:
Ah how shameless--the way these mortals blame the gods.
From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes,
but they themselves, with their own reckless ways,
compound their pains beyond their proper share (1.37-40).
What is Zeus saying? Is he right? Whose fault is it anyway that Odysseus has been wandering for ten years -- that the suitors are eating him out of house and home?

Gender and power

In this, as in other narratives we've read this year, much of the authority in the story is possessed for men. Still, in this epic we see several examples of women who possess different kinds of power, including Penelope, Calypso, Circe, and the goddess Athena. What is the relationship between gender and power in this story?

Growing up

At the beginning of the Odyssey, Telemachus seems young and powerless. As he embarks on a journey and the epic wears on, how and why does the character of Telemachus change?

Epithets

Almost every mention of a character in this book is accompanied by an epithet - 'rosy-fingered Dawn,' 'the grey-eyed goddess,' 'the man of twists and turns,' 'the true son of Odysseus'...What sense can you make of these epithets? What kinds of information do they convey -- about Greek society, about gender, about the relationship between humans and the gods, or about individual characters?

Narrative and storytelling

"Clever" Odysseus, "crafty" Odysseus, "the man of twists and turns," is known as an excellent storyteller. What is the role of stories in the Odyssey? How reliable are Odysseus's stories?