What I would like to write about….
by ihasi
These past two month, I have read a variety of texts all appealing and exciting. Thus, it has been hard for me to choose a specific text to write a five page paper on. Finally, I was able to narrow my selection down and decide to write my paper on The Odyssey. The reason for choosing The Odyssey is because of Homer’s writing style. Homer’s writing is engaging because he was able to embellish to no ends Odysseus’s character. In The Odyssey, the character of Odysseus was portrayed by Homer to help bring out certain exaggerations and unrealistic elements. Odysseus is introduced as a man of strong and prudent character at start. Since Odysseus was able to overcome such great obstacles such as escaping from Kyklops’s in order to free himself and his men, Homer almost made me believe that Odysseus was not human but a instead a god. Thus, what I would like to examine in my paper is how Homer is able to portray Odysseus to the audience in a variety of different ways.
Sounds good, it is interesting the way Homer portrays Odysseus in so many different ways. Sometimes Homer seems to be promoting Odysseus as a strong, composed and intelligent person but yet Homer also reveals a side to which Odysseus is also imperfect. Yes Odysseus was the one who saved his men from Kyklops but where was he when his men ate Helios’ sheep and cattle which led to their deaths? You can also mention how Odysseus, as godly as he seems, can sometimes be overtaken by hubris (i.e. when he taunted Kyklops after outwitting him then almost getting killed by retaliation). So it would be a great argument if you explained why Homer would do such a thing, almost showing two extremes of a character at different times throughout the epic.
This is a nice start, but I’d like to know more about the different aspects of O’s identity that Homer illustrates, and for you to think about why he does them. Right now, the paper sounds like a description of all of the different roles he plays, without a unifying theme to tie them together. What is Homer trying to show by having such a multiplicitous character?