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Name:
Mrs. Sahaydak
English 101, Period:
Date:
Short Answer Study Guide Questions for The Odyssey
A Resource for The Odyssey: http:www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/chapman/
1. What are the characteristics of an epic?
Characteristics of an epic include:
A.
B.
C.
D.
2. Considering his plan to win the Trojan War, do you find Odysseus heroic, or do you think he is
deceitful and treacherous? Why do you feel this way? Explain.
3. How is The Odyssey divided?
The epic can be divided into four major sections:
 Books 1 Books
 Books
 Books
-24=
4. Who is the Odyssey’s accepted author?
5. What is the primary setting of the Iliad?
6. How is the Iliad related to the Odyssey?
7. Where is Odysseus’ home?
8. Define a Homeric simile. Look in the introductory part of the Odyssey in your textbook.
9. During the time just before they began the Trojan war, Menelaus and Agamemnon gathered an army
of 1,000 ships. They needed Odysseus’ cunning nature to help them in battle, so they went to fetch
him. Odysseus didn’t want to go to war. He was married to Penelope, who had just given birth to his
son, Telemachus. What did Odysseus do to try to “dodge” going to war with the men?
10. Why didn’t Odysseus’ ploy work?
11. What are “myths”?
12. A god or goddess can be a character’s alter ego. Athena and Poseidon are the goddess and god most
directly associated with Odysseus. How do they represent his alter ego?
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13. Why does Telemachus call the men to assembly before he goes on his trip to find his father?
TELL THE STORY
14. The Odyssey. As well as the Iliad, begins with an epic convention—the poet’s prayer to Calliope, the
Muse of epic poetry. What does the poet ask of the Muse?
“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.”
15. How does the poet stress a moral them in the lines “But not by will nor valor could he save them, for
their own recklessness destroyed them all—“ (10-11)?
16. How would you describe the speaker’s manner and attitude in addressing the Muse? “Of these
adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus, tell us in our time, lift the great song again.” (lines 16-17)
17. Why does Odysseus not return home with his fellow Greeks?
“Begin when all the rest who left behind them
Headlong death in battle or at sea
Had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered
For home and wife. Her ladyship Calypso
Clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves—
A nymph, immortal and most beautiful,
Who craved him for her own.”
18. What does Homer tell you about the hero and about what is going to happen to him?
PART ONE: THE WANDERINGS
“I AM LAERTES’ SON…”
19. Why does Odysseus not give his name before the minstrel plays?
20. Do you think he may be reluctant to identify himself in the home of the Phaecians, who are sailors and
thus worshippers of Poseidon?
21. What does Phaeacia represent and how does it contrast with Cyclops’ island?
22. Why do you think Homer has Odysseus recount his own story?
23. How does Homer cast Odysseus in the role of a singer of tales?
24. What impression do you get about Odysseus from the following passage? (lines 34-36)
“Men hold me
Formidable for guile in peace and war:
This fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim.”
25. What is the epithet or descriptive phrase that names someone found in line 48, “…though I have been
detained long by Calypso,/loveliest among goddesses, who held me/in her smooth caves, to be her
heart’s delight,/as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress,/desired me, and detained me in her hall.” ?
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26. How does Odysseus express one of the main themes of the poem in the passage in lines 51-53?
“But in my heart I never gave consent.
Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass
His own home and his parents? In far lands
He shall not, though he find a house of gold.”
27. What is compared in the simile in lines 69-71? “This was an army, trained to fight on horseback/or,
where the ground required, on foot. They came/with dawn over that terrain like the leaves and blades
of spring. So doom appeared to us,”
28. What time do you think is “unyoking time”? “but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,” (line
77) What does the phrase tell you about the way the people of the era tell time?
29. Which part of the poet’s description of dawn tells you that the event is personified? What is the
resulting image? (line 95) “then two long days and nights we lay offshore/worn out and sick at heart,
tasting our grief, until a third Dawn came with ringlets shining.”
30. Do armies behave like this in modern times?
31. What is Zeus’ command to Calypso?
32. Which god/dess brings Zeus’ command to Calypso?
THE LOTUS EATERS
33. What can you conclude about Odysseus’ character from him sending his men to investigate the
unknown island?
34. What is the effect of eating the lotus flower?
35. Why does Odysseus tie his men under the rowing benches?
THE CYCLOPS
36. Why do you think Odysseus and his men burn an offering for the gods? “We lit a fire, burnt an
offering,/and took some cheese to eat; then sat in silence/around the embers, waiting…”
37. Why does Odysseus lead his men into Polyphemos’ cave?
38. What happens when Polyphemos finds Odysseus and his men in the cave?
39. If Poseidon is Odysseus’s alter ego, and Cyclops is Poseidon’s son, why should it be expected that the
Cyclops have a barbaric nature?
40. How does the poet make something unbelievable, such as the great size of the rock he used to close
the cave, conceivable to the reader? (lines 137-140) “…Two dozen four-wheeled wagons,/with
heaving wagon teams, could not have stirred/the tonnage of that rock from where he wedged it/over
the doorsill. Next he took his seat”
41. What details indicate the Cyclops’s personality under his brute strength? (lines 141-149)
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42. What is ironic about the Cyclops’s comment about “traffic”? (line 150)
43. Why is it such a big deal that Cyclops is treating his guests badly? (lines 163-168)
44. How does Odysseus’ narration where he gives an “aside” to his audience give the reader insight into
the events he recounts? (lines 178-179)
45. Why does Odysseus tell the lie to Polyphemos about the ship? (lines 179-183)
46. What does the image of the men “lifting (their) hands to Zeus” suggest about their situation? (191)
47. What do you learn about the Cyclops from the simile in lines 211-213?
48. Why does Odysseus pray to Athena? (215-216)
49. Why do you think Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his name is Nohbdy? (267-268)
50. What is ironic about the Cyclops’s saying he will eat Nohbdy last? (268-270)
51. What in your experience compares to Odysseus’ “battle talk”? (277-278)
52. What are some examples of irony in lines 304 ½ - 314?
53. What steps does Odysseus take to prepare for escape? (329-339)
54. What does the double negative of “Nohbdy will not get out alive” literally mean? (361)
55. What does the image in lines 396-398 reveal about the rowers’ pace?
56. Why does Odysseus reveal his name to Polyphemos after he has escaped? (408-412)
57. What are the men’s reasons for not wanting Odysseus to call out to the Cyclops? (402-406)
58. Who is the god of earthquakes of whom the Cyclops speaks? (424-429)
59. Why does the Cyclops refer to Poseidon as “blue girdler of the islands”? (436)
60. What do you think the Cyclops’s curse foreshadows for Odysseus and his men? (438-445)
AEOLUS
61. What natural phenomenon is controlled by Aeolus?
62. How does Aeolus show his goodwill when Odysseus is about to leave?
63. How does the summary about the bag of winds relate to Homer’s description of Odysseus’
wanderings in the prayer at the beginning of the poem?
64. Should Odysseus have told the sailors what was in the bull’s-hide bag?
65. Odysseus and his men come within sight of Ithaca. Why do they not land?
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66. Odysseus asks for further help from Aeolus. What is his reply?
THE LAESTRYGONIANS
67. Who were the Laestrygonians?
68. Briefly explain what happened to Odysseus’ men who encountered the Laestrygonians and what
Odysseus did there.
THE WITCH CIRCE
69. One legend says that Circe and Odysseus were the parents of Telegonus. One legend says that years
after the events of the Odyssey Telegonus searched for his father. What happened when he happened
upon Odysseus unknowingly?
70. How does the Circe episode parallel the episode of the Lotus Eaters in Book 9? (472-476)
71. What has happened to the men? (480-483)
72. What have the men done to deserve the fate Circe gives them?
73. How did Circe, violate the laws of hospitality?
74. Who is Persephone? “the cold homes of Death and pale Persephone,”
THE LAND OF THE DEAD
75. What does Odysseus do to call the souls of the dead to him? (491-513)
76. In portions of Book 11 not included in your text book, Odysseus encounters several other characters in
the Land of the Dead. Name some of them and explain their situations.
77. What is Odysseus’ mother’s name?
78. How does Odysseus’ mother die?
79. Why does Odysseus not let his mother come near the blood?
80. In lines 525-527, what is it that Teiresias’ states that Odysseus’ needs?
81. What does Teiresias say would cause Odysseus and his men destruction? (537-539)
82. What does Teiresias predict for Odysseus?(540-544)
83. What should Odysseus do to the suitors at his house? (545-546)
84. What does Teiresias say Odysseus should do after dealing with the suitors? (548-565)
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS
85. How do the Sirens destroy men, and how do Odysseus and his men avoid destruction?
86. What do the critics say that the Sirens represent?
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87. Why do you think Odysseus was determined to listen to the Sirens’ song? (Keep in mind what the
Sirens are supposed to represent). (579-585)
88. One myth states that because Poseidon loved the maiden Scylla, his wife Amphitrite turned her into a
monster of the sea by doing what?
89. Why should sailors beware of Scylla? (Describe her)n (589-601)
90. What do you find symbolic, in relation to time, in the numbers of the herd? (615-617)
91. Who else, besides Circe has warned Odysseus to leave Helios’s cattle alone?
92. How could the Sirens drop under the “sea rim”? (665-667)
93. What does Odysseus’ failure to remember Circe’s warning about the uselessness of weapons reveal
about how he thinks of himself? (700-704)
94. What happens to Odysseus’ companions on Tharinkia?
95. What happens to Odysseus after Zeus intervenes with the fate of Odysseus’ men?
PART TWO: COMING HOME
THE BEGGAR AND THE FAITHFUL DOG
96. Why should a great epic concern itself with an old dog?
97. In what way is the dog Argos, as he is described here (lines 759-765), similar to Odysseus and to the
kingdom of Ithaca?
98. What was Argos’s condition when Odysseus returned home?
99. What does this scene reveal to the reader about Odysseus’ character? (768-770)
100.
Why is this scene in lines 778-781 ironic?
101.
What qualities does Penelope reveal about herself in this scene?
THE TEST OF THE GREAT BOW
102. What are the suitors doing in the house?
103.
How has Penelope managed to hold off the suitors’ demands for the past four years?
104.
What is the conflict that Odysseus faces in lines 841 ½ - 843?
105.
Why does Odysseus promise the cowherd and swineherd rewards? (861-865)
106.
How is Penelope’s acceptance of the beggar as a competitor for her hand ironic?
107.
What do you learn about Odysseus’ state of mind from this scene?
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108.
How is the suitor’s comment in line 899 ironic?
109.
What might the crack of thunder in lines 909-913 foreshadow? Explain
110. What does the phrase “cook their lordships’ mutton” mean? How would you express the idea?
(928-930)
111.
Why will Odysseus take revenge on the suitors and maids?
112.
What does the phrase “true son of King Odysseus” imply about Telemachus?
DEATH AT THE PALACE
113. Where is the climax of the epic?
114.
What is Odysseus able to do that the suitors could not do?
115.
Why could he do this thing that the suitors could not do?
116.
After Odysseus won the contest, who was the first suitor he killed? Why?
117. What can you infer about the suitors’ state of mind from their reaction to Odysseus’ attack? (956958)
118. Foils are contrasting characters. The violent, insulting Antonius has a foil in the epic; who is it?
(980-994)
119.
What happens to the disloyal serving women?
120. What does this bloody scene add to the epic’s theme about the value of hospitality and about what
happens to people who mock divine laws?
ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE
121. How does Homer portray Penelope?
122.
Why does Penelope have so much trouble recognizing Odysseus? (1024-1028)
123.
How does Penelope test Odysseus?(1076-1107)
124.
Explain the process by which Odysseus builds the bed. (1089-1099)
125.
In what other episode was the olive tree significant?
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