The Odyssey: Central Ideas And Character Motivation, Part 2

20 August 2022
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question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. In a smithy one sees a white-hot axehead or an adze plunged and wrung in a cold tub, screeching steam-the way they make soft iron hale and hard—:just so that eyeball hissed around the spike. The use of the epic simile in this excerpt helps the reader understand
answer
how hot the spear actually is.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. but Cyclops went on filling up his bellywith manflesh and great gulps of whey,then lay down like a mast among his sheep. What two unlike elements are being compared in this simile?
answer
the Cyclops and the mast of a ship
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. Then, his chores being all dispatched, he caught another brace of men to make his breakfast, and whisked away his great door slab to let his sheep go through—but he, behind, reset the stone as one would cap a quiver. What two things are being compared in this epic simile?
answer
the stone to a quiver
question
Which excerpts contain examples of epic similes? Select 3 options.
answer
- "...its crackling roots blazed and hissed -as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adzein an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens - that's the iron's strength -so the eye of Cyclops sizzled round that stake." - Or are you wandering rogues, who cast your lives like dice, and ravage other folk by sea?' - Then he dismembered them and made his meal, gaping and crunching like a mountain lion—everything: innards, flesh, and marrow bones.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. My heart beat high now at the chance of action,and drawing the sharp sword from my hip I wentalong his flank to stab him where the midriffholds the liver. I had touched the spotwhen sudden fear stayed me: if I killed himwe perished there as well, for we could nevermove his ponderous doorway slab aside.So we were left to groan and wait for morning. What prevents Odysseus from killing the sleeping Cyclops?
answer
He knows that they cannot move the boulder blocking the doorway.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. Neither reply nor pity came from him,but in one stride he clutched at my companionsand caught two in his hands like squirming puppiesto beat their brains out, spattering the floor. The epic simile in this excerpt shows
answer
how helpless Odysseus's men are in the clutches of the Cyclops.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. 'O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions?Puny, am I, in a Caveman's hands?How do you like the beating that we gave you,you damned cannibal? Eater of guestsunder your roof! Zeus and the gods have paid you!' According to this excerpt, Odysseus
answer
is prideful and overly confident.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. At this he gave a mighty sob and rumbled:'Now comes the weird upon me, spoken of old. A wizard, grand and wondrous, lived here—Telemus, a son of Euryinus; great length of days he had in wizardry among the Cyclopes, and these things he foretold for time to come: my great eye lost, and at Odysseus' hands. Always I had in mind some giant, armedin giant force, would come against me here. But this, but you—small, pitiful and twiggy—you put me down with wine, you blinded me. Come back, Odysseus, and I'll treat you well, praying the god of earthquake to befriend you—his son I am, for he by his avowal fathered me, and if he will, he may heal me of this black wound—he and no other of all the happy gods or mortal men.' Why does the Cyclops invite Odysseus back to the island?
answer
He realizes that Odysseus was destined to take his eye.
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. 'Aye He'll smash our timbers and our heads together!' I would not heed them in my glorying spirit,but let my anger flare and yelled: 'Cyclops, if ever mortal man inquirehow you were put to shame and blinded, tell himOdysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:Laertes' son, whose home's on Ithaca!' What motivates Odysseus to reveal his name and put his men in more danger?
answer
anger and pride
question
Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. Here are the means I thought would serve my turn: a club, or staff, lay there along the fold—an olive tree, felled green and left to seasonfor Cyclops' hand. And it was like a masta lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam—a deep-sea-going craft—might carry:so long, so big around, it seemed. Based on the epic simile, how should the reader picture the beam of wood Odysseus found in the cave?
answer
like the mast of an enormously large ship