Character Analysis The Odyssey - 2498 Words

When sons think about growing up and becoming adults, their fathers are their perfect role models. A son wants to have the same job as his father, have the same personality, and be able to impress his father to the best of his ability. When a father is absent from his son’s childhood, the son may try to live up to the stories he hears about his dad, while in other cases, the son may try to avoid any thought of how his father is portrayed. Without a father, a child often seeks out mentors to compensate for the lack of guidance. In The Odyssey, Telemachus grows up hearing stories about his father. His mother, Penelope, and servants in the palace build an image, in Telemachus’ mind, that his father, Odysseus, is a great fighter and hero. With the help of a goddess and mentor, Athena, Telemachus aspires to impress his father by becoming the man he thinks Odysseus would want him to be. Holden, on the other hand, does not have a great relationship with his father. After Holde n’s brother, Allie, dies, Holden is sent away to boarding school and learns how to grow up on his own. Unlike Telemachus who hopes to someday join forces with his father, Holden wants nothing to do with his father. Telemachus and Holden both look to adults for the guidance they do not receive from their absent fathers, but while Athena helps Telemachus become a confident, brave man, like his father, Holden fails to find a mentor who can help him become the bravely non-conformist man he’d like to be; unlike TheShow MoreRelatedThe Odyssey Character Analysis924 Words   |  4 PagesThe Odyssey by Homer is, an epic poem, set in ancient Greece around the eighth century. In The Odyssey by Homer the main character Odysseus is dragged along adventures and trials: temptation, danger, and influence along with passel of others and unpleasantness Odysseus faces and overcome parallel a regular person’s day, more specifically, myself. In The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus encounters oodles of temptations, â€Å"...Calypso, held him in her hollow grottoes: she wanted him as a husband.† (HomerRead MoreCharacter Analysis : The Odyssey 1299 Words   |  6 Pages Johnsmeyer Hero Essay AP LANG Is Odysseus, the main character of Homer s The Odyssey, really an epic hero? An epic hero exemplifies several heroic traits such as; immortal or super-human strength; being highly intellectual and courageous; and being a powerful and responsible leader. An epic hero has struggles and is overwhelmed with difficulties whilst on a quest of self discovery, war, or some sort of goal. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is on a quest to return home to Ithaca after ten yearsRead MoreThe Odyssey And Beowulf : Character Analysis1642 Words   |  7 Pagesway to clearly mark certain behaviors as poor social etiquette. Through the use of extreme behavior that identifies a character as immoral, other behaviors that are exhibited are reinforced as distasteful and frowned upon by the society and culture. Without explicitly stating the rules, people are shown the correct and incorrect behaviors. Within The Odyssey and Beowulf, two characters clearly violate social norms by invading spaces that no one invited them into. The suitors and Grendel both demonstrateRead MoreCharacter Analysis : The Great Odyssey And Oedipus Essay1777 Words   |  8 PagesIn spite of the fact that neither Penelope nor Jocasta is the protagonist in the two great works Odyssey and Oedipus, the two characters both play important roles in driving the plots ahead, significantly contributing to the completely different fates of their husbands, Odysseus and Oedipus. Jocasta is a typical representative of the group of women who are passive and dependent. She inevitably falls victim to the male world, in that she fades into the background of the play and is marginalized underRead MoreCharacter Analysis of Telemachus and The Odyssey by Homer Essay646 Words   |  3 PagesTelemachus In the beginning of The Odyssey, Telemachus is not yet a man and not sure of himself yet. Embarking on a mission to find his father, he matures from a child to a strong, single-minded adult. Throughout the poem, Telemachus finds his place in the world and becomes a more well-rounded person. Although Telemachus never quite matches his father Odysseus in terms of wit, strength, agility, his resilience does develop throughout the text. In the epic, The Odyssey, by Homer, the young boy TelemachusRead MoreCharacter Analysis of Odyssues in Homer ´s Odyssey Essay examples572 Words   |  3 Pages I am Laertes son Odysseus, men hold me formidable for guile in peace and war: this fame has gone abroad to the skys rim. (1047) Odysseus is an epic hero in The Odyssey and exhibits three character traits that assuredly stand out to readers. Those traits are intelligence, compassion, and determination. When trapped in a cave and held captive Odysseus makes a hasty, but intelligent decision to spare his captors life. His captor just happened to be a Cyclops. Odysseus was astute in hisRead MoreA Comparative Analysis of Characters in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Homers Iliad and Odyssey and The Alchemist765 Words   |  3 PagesHarry Potter, Frodo Baggins, and many more. Two other examples of this are the hunt for the treasure in the movie Oh Brother For Art Thou, a modern retelling of Homers Iliad and Odyssey, and the Paulo Coelho 1988 novel The Alchemist. Similar in many ways, dissimilar in age, species and even planet, these three characters nevertheless undergo both a personal evolution during their journey and become heroic in their selfless determination to help others. We can think of this as the heros journey whichRead MoreThe Penelopiad Analysis958 Words   |  4 Pagesmust first look at how Atwood perceived the characters and writings that Homer created in his novel à ¢â‚¬ËœThe Odyssey’ . In an interview, Atwood explained her beliefs on the gender roles surround The Odyssey thus incorporating this as well as other materials into ‘The Penelopiad’ by stating: â€Å"There is an argument that has been made quite thoroughly that The Iliad and The Odyssey were written by two different people, and that the person who wrote The Odyssey was a woman.’ Atwood then carries on to explainRead More Elements of Homers Odyssey in the Coen Brothers Oh Brother Where Art Thou646 Words   |  3 Pagesadventure The Odyssey, is a film amusingly filled with themes of symbolism similar to those found in Homer’s epic, while still maintaining a sense of originality and style that they have become so renowned for. An exciting and entertaining blend of high adventure, humour, and heartfelt emotion, at first glance, the film barely resembles Homer’s poem: only certain elements are obvious, such as the main character’s name and the three sirens by the river. However, a deeper and more intense analysis of theRead MoreThe Odyssey By Homer, Annotated Bibliography Essay1234 Words   |  5 Pageshe Odyssey, as written by Homer, intricately and excitingly weaves Colin Renfrew’s Subsystem Theories throughout the entire play. Many of the five subsystem theories can be seen and support understanding of the novel. Of the five sys tems, trade/communication, social/ political hierarchy and symbolic subsystems will be the focus of analysis in this paper. All of these subsystems come together in The Odyssey to explain the characters and their lives, and also how they fit into the society which they