“Odyssey Response” for World Literature I class
There is contrast amid the Phaeacian youths with characterization as glory seeking and of Odysseus as somberness despite the achievements of considerable glory highlights. This is of how Odysseus’s undergoes painful experiences, which matures him. The Phaeacian youths with lack of experience in the aspect of life’s hardships exposes them to rash actions. This is evident in the case where Broadsea throws insults at Odysseus in an attempt to demonstrate of their manhood. The Laodamas youth’s exhortation, “What greater glory attends a man . . . / than what he wins with his racing feet and striving hands? / . . . throw your cares to the wind!” to Odysseus’s is an illustration of a simplistic preoccupation of the youths through physical prowess, (Homer, The Odyssey Books VIII, 170–172).
Odysseus also with the ability to best the youths in the corresponding athletic competition manages to exude composure in the youths’ faces with an exertion to defend his honor following the Broadsea’s insult. He retorts, “Pains weigh on my spirit now, not your sports,” displaying an aspect of grave concerns prioritization of the family with corresponding glory loss over trivial concern for own sake (Homer, The Odyssey Books VIII, 178).
In Odyssey, the aspect of juxtaposition of significant elements including powerful and gently and the question stated poetically enables an illustration that the monstrousness character of Plophemus is tenderhearted. In contemplative to reason as to why the ram leaves the cave last, Polyphemus makes an attribution of the human capacity sympathy subject to him, “Sick at heart for your master’s eye” (Homer, The Odyssey Books IX, 505).
The tenderness illustrated through Polyphemus is more endearing for the ignorance character he demonstrates unaware of the cunning nature of Odysseus. Though disguised in a cunning characteristic, Odysseus also shows the conniving, dishonest, underhanded, and cowardly characteristics. This is proven through the case where Dante in the Inferno manages to relegate Odysseus. This is from the realm that is reserved for the guilty in spiritual theft, the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell as a result of the treachery he shows in the episode of Trojan horse that gave him the opportunity of slaughtering the unwitting Trojans.