Sunday, March 8, 2009
Lies
In the later books that we have read as a class, characters take the role of another person. In addition to this, characters often lie about where they have been, what they have done, and specifically weather they have encountered Odysseus recently. Why do you think they do this and what is the rellevance of this?
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Well by not telling the complete story of their journey, like Odysseus does frequently, that could allow the characters to buff up their story and make themselves look better or to protect their identity. We see that Odysseus does both. He lies about his story of who his is to the suitors so they don't kill him and ruin his plan of killing them. Odysseus also lies to the Pheaicians to keep his identity a secret but he still buffs up his story to make himself look better.
ReplyDeleteI think that throughout this book, a lot of people choose to lie. Some do it because it will help them to hopefully reach a certain destination, but I believe that others lie just for the "upper-hand", or lie to be in control and have someone else's trust. An example of lying in a negative way is the suitors. Some of the suitors pleaded for Odysseus not to kill them, saying that they were innocent. Although a few were telling the truth, there were also suitors who lied just to save their lives. They came into Odysseus' palace and used his goods and tried to marry his wife, but when he came home and they realized they were in trouble, some of them lied to protect themselves. But, on the contrary I think that sometimes, only in very special circumstances in this book, lying is warranted. Don't get me wrong, I am all for telling the truth but I believe that especially in the cases of the women, sometimes they have reason to lie. Such as, Penelope tricking the suitors and telling them she was making the shroud or when she told them to string the bow, knowing none of them could do it. She lied only to protect herself, and because trickery was one of the only ways for one person to protect themself from all of the suitors. Although she was not telling the truth, which is normally immoral, I believe that Penelope had a right to because she was working for a better goal, to fight the bad guys, and to ultimately make things better.
ReplyDeleteThese characters in the Odyssey lie about their appearance, their whereabouts, and who they have seen in hope to gain answers to some of their questions. They lie because they know they will not get an answer to their question if they don’t or because they want to test someone. Odysseus lies various times in the Odyssey. He lies to the Phaeacians when he tells his story mainly for glory, he lies to the suitors living in his house only to plan to kill them, and he lies to his father to possibly see if he remembers his own son. Athena lies many times also to help Odysseus get home.
ReplyDeleteI think that Homer did this partially for the interest aspect and to add to the story. This way makes the story of Odysseus more interesting and not shot lived. For example, if Odysseus came home and was not disguised and did not lie, there was no different thing that would keep you wanting to read about the journey. This is because Odysseus would come home and everybody would recognize that it was Odysseus. That would not be intriguing for the reader because then the story would end quickly because they would have the fight with the suitors and be done instead of being able to trick the people of Ithaca. The reason why it is more interesting to have Odysseus lying is there are now secrets and the reader can wonder who will figure it out, for example recently in class we talked about whether Penelope actually knows that it is Odysseus, and not a beggar. She says wash the feet of your master and then pauses. This pause is supposed to possibly represent Penelope realizing that it was Odysseus. However, the only reason why this does not make sense is that after this incident, in book 21, Penelope returns to her room and sobs wanting the return of her husband, Odysseus.
ReplyDeleteAlso Homer does this so that Odysseus can test his workers and people of his Island of Ithaca. He can learn if the people still faithful to him and the people who have started to respect and follow the suitors. This helps Odysseus determine who he will inform that he is actually the Odysseus they have cried over for almost twenty years. If some of his workers like the goat herder are no longer faithful to Odysseus, Telemachus, and his kingdom then they will be killed along with the suitors. If Homer did not make Odysseus lie about his past and be disguised then the rest of the book would not provide the necessary intrigue to keep it interesting.
In the Odyssey people disguise themselves often. Much of the disguising is done to create a lie. Odysseus is disguised as a strange and Athena disguises herself as Mentes.
ReplyDeleteDisguised as Mentes Athena gets to test the true character of Telemachus and others. If she would have kept her natural appearance, those she visits would be overwhelmed with her and only show her respect because she was a goddess, not out of generosity but loyalty.So Athena is in disguise to find the true nature of someones heart.
Athena places Odysseus in disguise so he can also see the true character of others and not have the rath of those who dislike him. As the stranger Odysseus makes up tons of lies to keep his cover. The lies he tells vary from kind of true to not true at all. His reason for lying is to cover up who he really is. Doing this disguises him from his enemies and speeds up his journey.
Another reason for all of the lies that float around are to withold a reputation. Reputation and how one is viewed in the epic depended on "warrior", royal status.For example, Odysseus as a stranger tells Eurameus the story of how he is a warrior (lie) just to make it seem like he (as the stranger) is important. So lies are made up to keep someones reputation alive.
That mistake in the beginning is supposed to say Odysseus is disguised as a strangeR.
ReplyDelete~Sorry
Another topic that frequently comes up within Griffin humanities. When we discuss this topic we constantly make reference to the Batman movie; The Dark Knight. For those of you that have watched The Dark Knight you will be well aware of the Joker and the many lies he tells concerning his scars. Of course no-one present knows the real story of how he got his scars and so he has leeway when he tells the stories; he can make up any story he wants to. Clearly, I am not suggesting that Odysseus is making up the stories (because why else would he have been gone for 20 years; there must be some truth in his stories) but I am saying that I think he over exaggerates his stories a lot because no-one is around to say no actually that did not happen; because all of his crew mates are dead. When Odysseus is telling his stories never does he mention the help he received from Athena; but when the narrator is telling the story Athena gets mentioned a lot; it is almost as though she is the brains behind the operation; for example when trapped on the island of the Phaeacians Athena casts a spell on Nausicaa so that she will not run away from Odyssey and eventually send him on his way home. Clearly, when Odyssey retells the story he will not mention Athena's help but instead he will over exaggerate the story to make it better; in my opinion this does not make him a liar, just a man of "twists and turns" and "a master story teller".
ReplyDeleteIn many of the books in The Odyssey, Odysseus and other characters in the story take on different looks or disguises. In book twenty one Odysseus disguises himself as suitor. He wants to look like a suitor, because he wanted to see how Penelope acted without him and to see if Penelope and the maids were loyal to him.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a lot of trickery in the story. When Penelope tricked the suitors to string the bow, and whoever could do it and shoot the arrow though the twelve axes would marry her. She tricked them, because she knew that no one could do it, only Odysseus. She tricked the suitors to protect herself, and the only way to keep Odysseus’s love was to trick them.
Another example or being in disguise, or tricking someone, was when Odysseus tricked Polyphemous by telling him that he was no one. If Polyphemous knew that it was Odysseus he probably would have killed him first, but instead Odysseus tricked him so he could live and stab him in the eye to get free from being trapped by the big boulder.
The themes of disguise and trickery are very common in this book. They make the story as interesting and dramatic as it is by giving many obstacles for Odysseus to accomplish. They also mean that Odysseus succeeds because of his wits rather than only his power.