 Please take your seats  Take out your notebooks and a pen  Give me your attention when the music ends

 You will have 5 minutes to write on one of the following prompts: 1. Why doesn't O tell his crew all of Circe's warnings? Does he follow all her advice himself? What does this tell us about O? 2. How is his crew like the suitors back in Ithaca? Compare and contrast these two groups of men.

 The Offering to the Dead  Elpenor – Asks for a proper burial  Teiresias’ prophecy  O’s Mother – O’s father?  The Queens of the Past  O stops his story to the Phaecians (Phaiakians, Altinoos’ people)  Their offer?  Agamemnon – Plotting wife (original sin?)  His advice  Achilles  Sisyphus  Hercules  Back to Circe

 Circe’s Island  Elpenor’s body  Circe’s advice  Sirens, Roving Rocks, Skylla, Charybdis, Helios’ cattle  Helio’s island  One month of wind, eating Circe’s provisions  Nap time  Offering of the cattle, eating of the cattle  Helios’ complaint to Zeus  The storm, the wreck, Calypso’s island

 A theme of a story might be thought of as the story’s point or its message. It is often a generalization about life or human behavior or values.  Stories often have multiple themes or meanings  Fables make this explicit and clear  Slow and steady, the ant and the grasshopper  Most stories have room for interpretation depending on the reader and his/her experiences/insights.  What themes have we seen so far?  Write two things/topics The Odyssey is ‘about.’

 Respect for the Gods  “What do you want me to learn?!”  “That without the Gods, man is nothing!”  Characters find success in respect for the gods and failure when they disrespect them.  Athena’s admiration leads her to help O and T  O’s mistreatment of Polyphemus brings Poseidon’s wrath  O’s men slaughter Hyperion’s cattle and are cursed by Zeus

 Hospitality  Guests might be a god/goddess in disguise  Athena  O’s presumption of Polyphemus  O’s welcome by Alkinoos

 Pride  O taunts Polyphemus after his escape  O rarely admits guilt/faults  (It’s the gods’ fault I fell asleep!)  Suitors’ Pride  Crewman Pride

 Intelligence Over Strength  O’s foes are physically more powerful  O is crafty when his crew panics  Penelope and her loom  O’s confrontation of the suitors

 Temptation  Giving in to temptation produces bad results  The lotus  Circe’s unlimited meat and sweet wine  Helios’ cattle  All food related, for some reason…

 Revenge  The action is often started when someone does something they shouldn’t, and vengeance must be taken.  This is a theme of the Epic in general  It is usually the main motivator for action  Remember the Trojan war?  Poseidon’s anger?  The Suitors?

 These heroes were without the modern justice system, therefore, justice came only to those who sought after it.  This usually took the form of killing or otherwise inconveniencing those who wronged you.  It is not always swift:  Beowulf and Grendel  O and the suitors  But it can be:  Grendel’s mother  O and Polyphemus

 The Hero Code  Honor and Pride are at the heart of this

 Characterize Odysseus as well as one other major character and one minor character  Quote/Text/Scene/Incident/Page number on left and inference/explanation/illumination on right

 By the end of next week, you will have produced one of the following assignments: 1. Conflict analysis paper 2. Modern retelling of any book 3. Odysseus personal journal entries 4. O taunting Polyphemus re-imagining  We will brainstorm next period, a rough draft will be due early next week, and final drafts and presentations will be at the end of next week.