THE ODYSSEY – BOOK SUMMARY – BOOK 20 ‘Prelude to the Crisis’
BASIC PLOT
MAIN CHARACTERS
Odysseus
Penelope
Telemachus
Eumaeus and Philotius
The Maids
The Suitors
INTERVENTION OF
GODS
Athena appears to Odysseus to
encourage him.
Zeus sends a thunderclap to
answer Odysseus’ prayer.
Athena causes the suitors to
lose their minds and laugh
uncontrollably.
Odysseus contemplates killing the disloyal maids but decides not to.
Athena appears to him and tells him to trust her. In the morning,
signs from the gods encourage him. Odysseus greets his faithful
swineherd and cowherd. Telemachus surprises the suitors with a
bold speech telling them to mind their manners at dinner and stop
insulting his guest the beggar. There is a strange scene where the
suitors collapse in uncontrollable laughter.
THEMES
HOMERIC VALUES
Disloyalty of the maids
Loyalty of the faithful servants
Telemachus becoming a man
Odysseus’ revenge
Guest friendship – Telemachus
defends Odysseus, his ‘guest’
Vengence
Patience
LITERARY
TECHNIQUES
WHAT THIS BOOK CONTRIBUTES TO THE WIDER
STORY
Epithets – “dawn appeared,
fresh and rosy fingered”,
This book provides signs from the gods of the carnage to come,
when Odysseus is to have revenge on the Suitors. It also advances
“shameless suitors”
the character of Telemachus and shows us the patient side of
Odysseus. Tension is increased before the contest with the bow.