Choose one of the following questions below about the Iliad and Odyssey–be sure to provide at least one rich, juicy quotation that does important work for your ideas (and that you actually take the time to unpack and analyze) . Write at least 300 words. This posting is worth ten points.
Choose ONE of the following questions:
1. Even though Odysseus claims to want to go home to his wife and son after being away for ten years because of the Trojan War, he always manages to thwart his voyage home –for instance, when he chooses to stay with the witch Circe (whom he has an intimate relationship with, by the way). Perhaps Odysseus is going through what we modern folks call a "mid-life crisis." Maybe he enjoys being aways and getting into adventures. It's complicated. For this prompt, analyze at least one example from the Odyssey (given the selections we're reading) that speak to Odysseus' ambiguous relationship to returning home.
2. The battle scene where Achilles kills Hektor (and Hektor's wife falls into a state a grief) is one of the most powerful and famous in the Iliad (books 21-22). Choose one passage from this scene and analyze it closely, making case for the emotions, mood, and dynamics between the characters that inform the scene, based on the language in your chosen passage. Some questions to consider: what images and emotions does the scene evoke? What was your visceral reaction? Which characters do you identify with or have empathy for? What is the structure of feeling of the scene? Does Achilles' pride in winning (dragging his prey, the dead Hektor, around by his heel) feel real to you as a reader? Does Andromache's, Hektor's wife, pain seem real to you? Is this a kind of grief and shock that you can relate to? Keep this in mind: as with Gilgamesh, although we're dealing with heroes and gods in the sprawling epic form, how might these characters be relatable to us everyday folks?
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