Odyssey

Question 1

Bowra - cunning

Answer 1

Odysseus needs cunning because he is reckless.

Question 2

Bowra - Unity

Answer 2

Penelope is ‘key to the unity of the poem’ a motivator for both Odysseus and the suitors

Question 3

Jones - closeness

Answer 3

The relationship between Athene and odysseus is ‘Unique in homer for its closeness’

Question 4

Jones - suitors

Answer 4

The killing of the suitors is the greatest problem for a reader of the Odyssey - is it an appropriate and justified punishment?

Question 5

Jones - Conflict

Answer 5

Penelope is a woman of conflict

Question 6

Skinner - Circe

Answer 6

Female independence is equated to female domination that strips men of their humanity and reduces them to the level of beasts.

Question 7

Higgins - Military

Answer 7

Odysseus’ homecoming is very similar to a modern military return home where he has been brutalised by the war and his beggar disguise is a metaphor for how war has changed him.

Question 8

Fagles and Knox - Xenia

Answer 8

Xenia is the ‘only code of moral conduct’ that obtains in the ‘insecure world of the Odyssey’.