Study Guide – English 9 Final
The Odyssey: Film Study Guide
Introduction
1. Who is Odysseus’s wife?
Answer: Penelope
2. What is their child’s name?
Answer: Telemachus
3. Why must Odysseus leave his home, Ithaca?
Answer: He is asked to help King Menelaus fight the Trojans; Odysseus must go – pact
4. Where is he going?
Answer: To Troy to fight against the Trojans
5. Who and what does Odysseus leave at home (4)?
Answer: Penelope, Telemachus, his own mother, his life/world/kingdom
6. What does Odysseus make Penelope promise him?
Answer: Penelope must marry another man if Odysseus has not returned by the time
Telemachus has a beard (probably around age of 20).
7. Who is Odysseus’s protector?
Answer: Athena, the goddess of wisdom
8. Describe Odysseus’s relationship with Athena.
Answer: Odysseus has a shrine to her at his home; he is sometimes respectful to her and
sometimes not.
The Trojan War
(Trojans versus the Greeks)
1. Describe the Greeks’ siege of Troy. Answer: The battle lasts 10 years, with many dying.
2. Who kills Hector, the man in the gold armor?
Answer: Achilles
3. After Achilles’s death, the Greeks feel very defeated. Odysseus persuades them to stay and
comes up with a clever plan to defeat the Trojans. Describe his plan.
Answer: Odysseus proposes building the Trojan horse, a large wooden horse left outside
the gates of Troy; the Trojans think the horse is a gift. Instead, the horse contains the best
Greek warriors. After the Trojans celebrate their win and go to sleep, the warriors emerge
from the horse and defeat the Trojans.
4. After the Greeks sack Troy, how does Odysseus offend Poseidon?
Answer: Odysseus offends Poseidon by taking all the credit for the win – doesn’t thank
Poseidon for his help.
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The Cyclops – The One-Eyed Monster
1. What rules does Polyphemus break?
Answer: He is not a good host – doesn’t welcome Odysseus and his men.
He does not worship the gods.
2. How do Odysseus and his men escape Polyphemus?
Answer: Odysseus and his men blind Polyphemus while he sleeps.
Odysseus and his men attach themselves to the underbelly of sheep and ride out
of the cave.
Aeolus – God of the Wind
1. Why does Aeolus help Odysseus?
Answer: Aeolus admires Odysseus because he is the first human to use his mind.
2. What help does Aeolus offer?
Answer: Aeolus provides a west (good) wind that will take Odysseus and men to Ithaca.
Aeolus puts the bad winds into a bag and gives them to Odysseus.
3. What prevents Aeolus’s gift from getting Odysseus back to Ithaca in the promised nine
days?
Answer: Odysseus’s men are curious about the bag and open it, releasing the bad winds.
Circe
1. What does Circe do to Odysseus’s men?
Answer: Circe gives them a magic potion, turning them into pigs.
2. Who helps Odysseus defeat Circe?
Answer: Hermes, the messenger god
3. How does this person help?
Answer: Hermes gives Odysseus moly (to protect him from potion) and tells him to force
Circe to promise to not use magic on him.
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Back at Ithaca
1. What promise does Penelope make to Telemachus?
Answer: Penelope will give Telemachus Odysseus’s bow when Telemachus can string it.
2. What does Odysseus’s mother do?
Answer: Kills herself
3. Why does she? Answer: She is grieving (terribly sad) about her son not returning.
More on Circe
1. How long does Odysseus stay with Circe? Answer: 5 years (thinks it’s 5 days)
2. What advice does Circe give to Odysseus?
Answer: He must seek advice from Tiresias, the blind prophet in the Underworld.
Back at Ithaca
1. Who comes to Ithaca as Odysseus prepares to go into Hades? Answer: 100 suitors
2. What is the purpose of these visitors?
Answer: They want to marry Penelope and take Odysseus’s kingdom.
3. Describe the argument between Telemachus and Penelope.
Answer: Telemachus wants the suitors to leave, and Penelope says she cannot force them.
Journey to the Underworld – Odysseus sees blind prophet Tiresias
1. When their ship docks near the river of fire, what instructions does Odysseus give his men
before going to find Tiresias?
Answer: Odysseus tells them to row hard for Ithaca if he does not return.
2. What news does Tiresias give Odysseus?
Answer: He tells Odysseus about the monsters Scylla and Charybdis
3. Who else does Odysseus see while in Hades? Answer: His mother
4. How does one person really motivate him to get home?
Answer: His mother says Penelope is waiting
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The Suitors – men trying to marry Penelope
1. How does Penelope avoid choosing a new husband?
Answer: She promises to marry when she finishes weaving a shroud (cloth for Odysseus),
but every night she takes out the weaving.
Scylla and Charybdis – monsters
1. Describe Scylla.
Answer: 6-headed, long-necked monster: each head grabs one man
2. Describe Charybdis.
Answer: Giant whirlpool monster: sucks everything down and spits it out
3. Who escapes these monsters? Answer: Only Odysseus survives these monsters.
4. Who distracts Odysseus from his troubles after Scylla and Charybdis? Answer: Circe
Telemachus’s Troubles
1. Describe the problems that Telemachus experiences in Ithaca.
Answer: Telemachus doesn’t want his mother to marry; he wants the suitors to leave
2. What advice does Penelope give him?
Answer: Penelope
3. Do the men of Ithaca help Telemachus?
Answer: Telemachus asks men of Ithaca to help get rid of suitors, but they refuse, telling
Telemachus that Odysseus must be dead.
4. What do the suitors plan for Telemachus? Answer: They plan to kill him when he returns.
5. Who actually helps Telemachus?
Answer: Athena gives him advice
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Calypso – witch on island of salt
1. How long is Odysseus stuck with Calypso? Answer: Two years
2. Why does Calypso let Odysseus go? Answer: Hermes says that Zeus has ordered it.
3. How does Calypso help Odysseus?
Answer: She tells him where to find wood to build a boat.
The Suitors, Again
1. Explain why Penelope’s plan to avoid choosing a husband fails.
Answer: Penelope’s maid tells one of the suitors that she is unweaving at night.
More on Calypso
1. How does Calypso try to entice Odysseus to stay?
Answer: Calypso tells Odysseus that she will make him immortal.
Telemachus in Sparta
1. After traveling to Sparta on Athena’s advice, Telemachus meets Menelaus. What does
Menelaus tell him?
Answer: That Odysseus must be dead because otherwise he would have returned to
Penelope and Telemachus
Odysseus at Sea
1. What does Poseidon want? Consider his conversation with Odysseus.
Answer: He wants Odysseus to appreciate and thank the gods – to be more humble.
2. Who helps Odysseus get home?
Answer: King Alcinous
3. What change enables Odysseus to return safely to Ithaca?
Answer: The goddess Athena disguises Odysseus as an old, unrecognizable beggar.
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Back Home at Ithaca
1. What challenges face Odysseus upon his return to Ithaca?
Answer: 100 suitors have taken over his home – too many to fight
2. How does Athena help Odysseus?
Answer: She helps to guide his arrows
3. How does Odysseus save Telemachus during his fight with Antinous?
Answer: Odysseus kills the suitor who is about to kill Antinous.
4. What does Odysseus, disguised, promise Penelope?
Answer: Odysseus promises Penelope that Odysseus loves her and will return.
5. How will Penelope choose a new husband?
Answer: She will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow
through 12 axe handles.
6. According to Odysseus, what crime do the suitors commit?
Answer: They have tried to steal his world (his wife, his son, and his kingdom)
7. How are the suitors punished?
Answer: They are killed.
8. In your opinion, does the punishment fit the crime? Explain.
9. Describe the story’s ending.
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