Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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?
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One of the similes which I enjoy can be found on page 172, verse 142. It reads:
ReplyDelete"And so he stalked
as a mountain lion exultant in his power
strides through wind and rain and his eyes blaze
and he charges sheep or oxen or chases wild deer
but his hunger drives him on to go to flocks,
even to raid the best defended homestead."
This simile is describing Odysseus as he is emerging from the bushes in Phaeacia. It compares his physical appearance to that of a mountain lion, strong, powerful, and brave. Even after traveling so far for so long, it illustrates how he remains relentless until he gets where he wants to be. I interpret it in the sense that the hunger of the mountain lion is relating to Odysseus' want to be at his homeland, and the fact the mountain lion is willing to attack even the best defended homestead in order to satisfy his hunger, Odysseus is willing to do whatever it takes to return home.
Homer does use a lot of epic similies in this book. He usually only uses these epic similies for people such as Odysseus or other heroic characters, such as gods like Athena. They're used to tell how heroic he is during certain events in the story. Whether it shows how strong and ferocious he is in combat or how powerfully he emerges, the epic similies are used to make people respect or even fear Odysseus. These epic similies also involve something that is found in nature, such as lions, a strong and proud animal. Homer relates this animal to Odysseus, who is also strong and proud. These epic similies show that the Greeks, poweful as they were, must have respected and feared nature just as Homer wants us to respect and fear Odysseus and the gods.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this epic peom Homer uses epic similes to relate what is happening to god-like people, such as mainly Odysseus and Athena, to something that is understandable but so detailed that it paints a picture in your mind. An epic simile found in the Odyssey that got my attention reads:
ReplyDeleteas an angler poised on a jutting rock flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swll, whips his long rod--hook sheatherd in an odhorn lure--and whisks up little fish he flips on the beach-break, writhing, gasping out their lives...so now they writhed
This epic simile is found in the Odyssey on pg 300 when Odysseus and his crew are trying to escape Charybdis but as they're paying attention to Charybdis, Scylla snatches six of Odysseus' crew with its six arms. The epic simile is comparing to what Scylla was doing to Odysseus crew to a fisherman catching fish and letting the fish die by sitting them on land after being catched. I enjoy reading this simile because i can see a man with a fishing rod whipping it into the water, catching fish, and then carelessly putting them nearby outside the water to slowly dry a painful death.
Probably one of the longest epic similes in the entire epic is found on page 208, lines 588-596. After hearing Demodocus the bard sing about the Trojan horse, Odysseus cries "as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband, a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom from home and children. Seeing the man go down, dying gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and shrills-- but the victors, just behind her, digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders, drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain, and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks."
ReplyDeleteThis epic simile describes how badly Odysseus weeps after hearing of his conquest of Troy. He weeps very badly, but he was probably trying to contain himself because only Alcinous notices him. It shows two things about Odysseus; It shows that he can be a very emotional man, and that he dwells on the past. He also cries on other occasions, but few others have epic similes with them. What I think it reveals about Greek society is that going to war, like with the Trojan horse, is a very important thing to the Greeks, otherwise Odysseus wouldn't have cried so badly. It also says something about how bards like Demodocus could move people, even to tears, back then.
One of the epic similes that I found interesting was on page 175 starting on line 256 and ending on line 260.
ReplyDelete“As a master craft man washes gold over beaten silver- a man, the god of fire and Queen Athena trained in every fine technique- and finished off his latest effort, handsome work, so she lavished splendor over his head and shoulder now.”
This epic simile is stating how Athena changed Odysseus to a more handsome godlike man to help him get back to Ithaca faster by making the Phaeacians more inclined to help him. This simile tells us that the gods are a part of everything, whether it is making a man look handsome or like a peasant. It also describes how unbelievably amazing and skilled the work of Athena was, to change Odysseus into this handsome man. This quote shows that the Greek society was one that thought the gods and goddess would help a deserving man. It also shows that this society believed that the gods and goddess could change anything or anyone if they wanted to. In addition to that, it tells us that the Greeks commonly worked with metals and had many craftsmen.
A simile is a figure of speech where two unrelated concepts or objects are shown to be comparable. These unlike items are often compared because of poetic purposes. Frequently, epic similes expand the comparison to lengthy proportions, or some would say tangents. In the Odyssey, epic similes are used successfully by Homer. His epic similes regularly occur through words such as "like" or "as." Homer describes Odysseus as he walks out to speak to princess Nausicaa.
ReplyDelete"as a mountain lion exultant in his power
strides through wind and rain and his eyes blaze
and he charges sheep or oxen or chases wild deer
but his hunger drives him on to go for flocks,
even to raid the best-defended homestead." (6. 143-147)
The detailed comparison that Homer makes connecting Odysseus to a mountain lion, helps engage the reader in the story. The epic simile compares the strength, courage and power of Odysseus to an animal. Although Odysseus and the lion are related in no obvious way, Homer draws the two together so that the reader may expand on and consider this connection. Homer's intense visual imagery helps to deepen the story line and intrigue the reader. Epic similes are used to engage the reader and strengthen their experience. Homer uses these extensive comparisons to increase the feeling and emotion in the story.
Extended similes are used frequently in the epic The Odyssey by Homer. They are used to compare one situation or other thing to another thing. Most of the similes used by Homer in this epic reflect on the culture. They show certain aspects and traits of the civilization through words. Although most similes only take up four to six lines, those lines may contain more than one idea about the civilation. A good example of this idea can be found on page 164 and starts on line 436. "Joy... warm as the joy that children feel when they see their father's life dawn again, one who's lain on a sickbed racked with torment, wasting away, slowly, under some angry power's onslaught- then what joy when the gods deliver him from his pains! So warm, Odysseus' joy when he saw that shore, those trees." This simile is used when Odysseus finally reaches home. The passage compares Odysseus' happiness when he finally reaches home to children who's sick father becomes healthy again. We can draw several conclusions about Greek culture from this passage. It can be infered that homeland and being home is valued. The entire simile and even the entire epic is mostly about Odysseus' struggle to return home and how happy he is once he finally reaches his destination. Also, the Greeks valued the relationship between children and their parents. The simile explains the happiness the children felt when their sick father became healthy. The Greeks also feared death and viewed it as a terrible thing. There are terrible descriptions in the simile and rest of the epic about death and the afterlife.
ReplyDeleteIn the Odyssey, as well as other stories written by Homer, an epic simile is also known as a Homeric simile, which is a simile lasting around five lines. I really liked the epic simile at the end of book 5 when Odysseus finally reaches land after almost ten long years of wandering. The epic simile is, “As a man will bury his glowing brand in ashes, off on a lonely farmstead, no neighbors near, to keep a spark alive – no need to kindle fire from somewhere else.” (5. 540-544) In this simile, Odysseus is trying stay alive like a brand, which is a barely burning piece of wood. Right after Odysseus makes it onto the Phaecia land safely he has barely no strength left to continue on his journey home. However, just like a glowing brand, Odysseus’s strength is barely there and must be re-lit soon before he dies out like an ash. That is why he covers himself with a pile of leaves, just to stay warm and to stay alive. This is a good epic simile from the Odyssey, because it describes of Odysseus finally landing on land since Calypso’s Island, where he was for seven years. This is a very important epic simile because right after he covers himself in leaves to stay alive, the goddess Athena allowed him to sleep for the first time in twenty days, which was causing him great fatigue. This act from Athena could indicate that maybe the gods and goddesses would finally allow him safe passage home, and let him be.
ReplyDeleteEpic similes can be found throughout Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. These epic similes can be used to give long, complex and ornate descriptions of characters actions and struggles. In the Odyssey, the epic similes are primarily used to compare Odysseus with something the reader can relate to. The epic simile that stood out to me when reading the Odyssey was from the very end of book five. It states:
ReplyDelete“He lunged for the reef, he seized it with both hands and clung
for dear life, groaning until the giant wave surged past
and so he escaped its force, but the breaker’s backwash
charged into him full fury and hurled him out to sea.
Like pebbles stuck in the suckers of some octopus
dragged from its lair-so strips of skin torn
from his clawing hands stuck to the rock face”(165).
This epic simile is comparing Odysseus to a reef, but unlike many of the other epic similes, it goes into even more detail. It compares specific parts of the reef to the situation Odysseus is in, and it compares specific parts of Odysseus to specific parts of the reef.
When first, quickly reading the simile, one will realize that this simile is comparing Odysseus’s struggle to grab onto the reef, and Odysseus’s struggle to survive Poseidon’s huge hurricane to a pebble being stuck to the suckers of an octopus. When reading this simile a second time, I noticed that the author was not only comparing Odysseus’s struggle to a pebble being stuck to the suckers of an octopus, but Homer also made the connection between the pebbles being dragged from their natural habitat by the octopus, and Odysseus being dragged from above water, his natural habitat, to below water by Poseidon’s hurricane. Finally, when reading the simile a third time, I noticed that the pebbles being pulled away, from their natural habitat, by the octopus was also being compared to Odysseus’s skin being yanked off of his hands by the reef.
When reading The Odyssey this simile really stood out to me because unlike some of the epic similes, Homer was comparing multiple things in one simile, and because to fully understand its complete meaning, one had to read the simile multiple times.
Two epic similes that are found together and i think go together are on page 451, in book 22. The first, which spans lines 409-413, describes the suitors after being slaughtered as being "like fish that fishermen drag from the churning gray surf in looped and coiling nets and fling ashore on a sweeping hook of beach-- some noble catch heaped on the sand, twitching, lusting for fresh salt sea but the Sungod hammers down and burns their lives out...." The second, lines 427-430, describes Odysseus after the slaughter as "like a lion that's devoured some ox of the field and lopes home, covered with blood, his chest streaked, both jaws glistening, dripping red-- a sight to strike terror."
ReplyDeleteIndividually, the first of these indicates how badly the suitors were killed. The second shows how powerful Odysseus is. Together, they describe just how bad and one-sided the slaughter was. It's interesting that Homer used two separate epic similes to describe the aftermath of the battle. It seems to me like he wanted to emphasize how this was the culmination of Odysseus's journey and long plot to kill the suitors. He wants the readers to experience a vicarious sense of accomplishment by emphasizing the aftermath of what could be considered the climax with not one, but two epic similes. It doesn't really show anything about Greek culture, in my opinion.