The Odyssey

One part of the odyssey that has stuck out a lot to me is the strong female character that Penelope plays. She shows that she is able to handle herself while her husband is gone. This is shown when Penelope tells the suitors that when she is done knitting she will chose one of the suitors to become her husband. Then later you find out every night she was undoing the progress of what she was making to stall having to chose a suitor. I was over all very impressed by the way Homer portrayed Penelope and the way she carried herself throughout all the struggles her life threw a her. Some people would say Penelope showed weakness when she was crying or how she was sad during the book. However, I found it powerful how she was so sad and going through so much and was still able to push through and not give in to the suitors or act rude towards anyone.

In Book 17, there is a lot of foreshadowing of what will happen to the suitors. Find three examples of this (quote them in your post), and explain what you think this means for the fate of the suitors.

There are many times where the future of the suitors is brought up in book seven. The quotes seem to be predicting the death of the suitors. The first quote is, "sowing death for the suitors." That quote seems to be saying something along the lines of planning the suitors death. The next quote is from the part of book seven where Odysseus was going to ask the suitors for food to see which one of them was a decent person. Then Odysseus said, "Not that the goddess had the slightest intention of sparing any of them." That quote was saying that even if there was a decent suitor Athena was still not going of spare any of them from her punishment. The last quote is, "That means death will surely come to the suitors." That quote was from when Telemachus sneezed and that was a sign to Penelope that death would come to the suitors.

What role has weaving played in the story so far? There are many examples of women weaving - what is the purpose of this? Provide textual evidence (quotes).

So far the idea of a women weaving has been brought up in the book multiple time. It is always being done by a woman and it seems the women are weaving for many different reasons. One woman seemed to be doing it for the obvious reason of making clothing for her child. Another woman, Penelope, used it as a way to stall having to marry one of her suitors. Penelope said to the suitors when she was done with making her robe she would marry one of them. The suitors later found out she had been lying, " every day she would weave at the great loom, and every night she would unweave by torchlight. She fooled us for three years with her craft." That is how Penelope used weaving to avoid getting married.

The proem is the very first part of the Odyssey. It begins with "Speak Memory -" and ends with "And tell the tale once more in our time." The proem sets up many of the major topics/themes of the Odyssey. What do you think you might be able to tell about the topics/themes of the Odyssey just by reading the proem? Use evidence from the proem to support your claims.

The proem at the beginning of the Odyssey is explaining what happened to Odysseus in very little detail. It is like giving a head start into what the book will talk about. The topic within the proem and throughout other parts of the book that stuck out to me the most is the kind of person Odysseus was and how people viewed him. Farther into the book it talked about how important Odysseus was to the people in Ithica and seemed to portray him as a good person. The proem also discusses the kind of person Odysseus was. The proem says, "As he struggles to survive and bring his men home but could not save them, hard as he tried." That part of the poem shows how much Odysseus cared about his men and makes it clear Odysseus was a fighter and unwilling to give up on himself or his men. The proem starts the book off by giving clues into the topic of what kind of person Odysseus was and some of the things he went through.

Final thoughts on Frederick Douglass

The book, "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass," was an autobiography about Fredrick's life as a slave and his journey to freedom. My favorite part of the book was when he said, “Whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to think of plans to gain my freedom,”(Douglass 58). I wondered why improving your conditions make your urge to escape stronger. Why would being treated better by people make you want to get away from them? Then I realized, the more freedom he was able to have to more freedom he wanted. In my opinion, that is a natural human response. He was deprived of human rights for most of his life and the more he found out what life should be like for him the more his was willing to fight for it.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Dover Publications Inc, 1995

How is education related to human freedom?

Freedom is having the right to act as you wish without anyone stopping you. Having an education has a lot to do with freedom. People with freedom are able to receive an education. People who don't have freedom are usually kept from receiving an education. People with an education are then prone to more opportunities later in life and will be able to create a happy life for themselves. Having the ability to receive an education without someone stopping you is a human freedom. Like freedom of speech, which allows people to say what they want, having the freedom of education allows people to learn what they want.

Why is the ability to read and write a statement about freedom?

The ability to read and write can be interpreted as freedom of expression. Having the freedom to write down what you want and be able to share others ideas through reading was definitely something the slaves did not have. If the slaves had been taught to read or write they would have been able to learn that the condition they were in were not okay. Being able to read and write shows that you were taught by someone. Being taught by someone meant the slave was being treated as a human which did not happen. If slaves had been given freedom of expression they would have not obeyed. Having the freedom of reading and writing would have given the slaves a reason to fight back.