Cruelty and Monsters in Homer’s the Odyssey and other Books

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In this book, I will be talking about how monsters are real in books and am going to be connecting to the readings that I have read from the class lectures. Monsters are not only big but dangerous. They can know what you’re thinking about and Feed on your fear.

Children always think about them under their bed or in their nightmares. They can be in different forms like animals, human, or something different. One of the readings that I have read is Odyssey Book 9. In the Odyssey book 9, this story quite explains the connection between memory and desire, to waste a memory of a demanded object either by magic or nature, is to lose the force toward action. The Cyclops are people outside of culture, they do not acknowledge any individual or religious god, nor do they have any common structures. This chapter shows the mysterious side of Odysseus’s conceit.

His selfishness and his thirst for life takes over his moral sense and lose several men their lives. Odysseus is the man of the story; he is distant from perfect.

Sometimes he is more rational than his men; sometimes not. Though by sounding regret Odysseus also shows that he has learned from his mistakes. Now people can say that he is a monster because he was the reason that several of his men died. This kind of monster is not like the movies which we see kill and eat human beings.

This kind of monster is just a monster of actions, thoughts, and selfishness. Now people sometimes don’t realize that he is a monster. But personally, that’s what I saw when I read it. Monster His men were controlled by him meaning he had full responsibilities of their lives. Now people might say that anyone in his place might do the same, but people have hearts. Odysseus was not just thinking about anyone but himself. He was thinking about himself and how he could be content with himself. He might not realize what he did until he has done it but it still doesn’t take away the selfish act that he did.

People are what they are upon their actions and attitudes. No one is naturally bad just how they act in particular in situations is what defines them. Monsters have their traits and ways to get what they want. Monsters kill, eat, and conquer so they can be satisfied with what they get. Odysseus did the same thing but instead felt regretful after it was too late. In Planet Forbidden, Robby The Robot was a very high craft work which he is most loyal and respectful to his human creators. Morbius had a lot on his mind and good discoveries that he never wanted to share with anyone.

Now Adams and Morbius had this fight about The Krell and how it’s destroying everything around. Now at the end, it shows that technology might not just be technology but something more significant. It shouldn’t be allowed to control us and how we think and do. There was a substantial connection between Dr. Morbius and the invisible monster because it felt like that Morbius was part of it and that it was gone when Dr. Morbius fell on the floor. Sometimes monsters are created by us as human beings. We can imagine it, or we can be able to build it in front of us as we create it. The word monster can have a lot of meanings, and it doesn’t have to involve us as human beings because some animals are monstrous. Books also include monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mist, to name a few. Monsters do exist in fiction, and I might say the same for today’s society because accidents happen and people don’t stop, murdering happen, and people don’t confess to authorities, and a lot more. Monsters present a difficulty that humans must defeat. Heroes work to earn fame by winning them, including cities people are afraid of them.

Monsters grew fear for men to overcome. They give a chance for heroes to prove themselves.

When turning on the tv, we expect to see those stories and what we really would like to be seeing are the stories about people being rescued or people reaching out to be able to help the people in need. Not saying that there aren’t ever any ‘great’ stories but probably at least 5 out of 8 times we turn on the tv, we see stories about the attacks or shootings, So that only leaves the times that we might see a good story on the news. In Cohen’s essay, monsters are described by seven several aspects about their looks, character, or image. Monsters are always types and descriptions of culture. They are brought into existing because of specific positions or perceptions of a period.

Monsters are “a representation of a certain social moment.” Monsters always get tirelessly. They can never be caught because they are not normal or if they can, they will return. It may change appearance or clothes, but it will come back always. When a monster is killed, there is still some part, some talisman, of it, left back. If there is no physical part left behind, there is at least a small look of the monster or steps, something that makes people unsure of its death and final destruction. Monsters cannot be assigned to a specific group of animals or people. Their material, emotional, or social features cross the lines of class. Monsters can be divided human, divided animal, not fitting them into either level, or they may have some other deformity or social characteristic that prevents them from being defined as a specific species.

Monsters are held of the things that are seen as separate. They are different culturally, racially, sexually, economically, or politically. They have aspects outside “the standard” of prevailing thought. When the majority of people thinks one idea or operates something to be right, the monster always thinks the opposition.

Monsters are signs of the unknown. They embrace the ideas that frighten us so that we won’t look farther into them. When the ocean was being examined, serpents were created to live at the ends of the planet, so that people would be warned and not want to explore further what may be beyond their knowledge of the ocean. Monsters put us off from the unknown. Monsters show our hidden motives. We create monsters so that we can examine what would oppositely be forbidden. They embody strange ideas about sex roles, sex, drive, place, or control.

They can freely destruct and injure, and not feel results or guilt from officials. Monsters enable us to perform the role of anything we would typically not claim as our identification, like small children wearing up in costumes of devils and witches for Halloween.

Monsters invoke us to examine our society and the opinions we make about other people’s and ask us to consider why we formulate them. They invite people to examine their minds and discover our real views. Oedipus Rex examines the terrible consequences of understanding and ignorance: Oedipus explores knowledge as an answer to the difficulties disturbing Thebes only to discover that it is his abuse and crime that have led to the plague decimating the city’s people. It shows the success of the gods’ prophecy future beyond individual will while Oedipus strength tries to act facing the prediction of the gods, he is weak in changing his fate. Oedipus’s hope for clarity of information comes into regular struggle with the decision of Jocasta, the priest, Creon, and Teiresias to cover the truth.

Oedipus’s search for justice and openness is good yet also terrible. It’s acknowledged by most that a monster is some beast, with some contrary intention, whether it be looks, personality, or purpose. Formerly, ‘monster’ was used to describe mythological creatures like centaurs, griffins, or sphinxes. In most myths, these so-called ‘monsters’ actually provide cooperation to humans, giving support in the form of advice for brute strength. For example, in the story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the principal characters, four children, are finding themselves in a mythological world, and throughout the story are helped by all sorts of ‘monstrosities.’ Beavers that talk, a faun, a centaur or two, and several gnomes. The heroes receive the most help from a strong lion, who speaks and gets back to life. These beasts weren’t all that ‘monstrous,’ originally. Just a creature a little on the great side. A monster can still be an ideal beast creeping in a room, or lying in wait under a child’s bed, planning to occupy their dreams. But don’t be tricked.

There are also real monsters hiding out there, in the present world. They usually look quite like you and me. Monster is not a kind word, no matter the setting. Technically, a monster should only be something talked of in legends or fairytales, a mythical creature that follows something of a mix between a human and an animal. But, ask any kid what hides in their closet, it won’t be anything similar to a human. The same thought, an abductor, takes a helpless boy from its house, placing it in danger. It goes against natural human sense to put any boy in danger. So, even though people like that don’t own the body of a horse, or horns, or anything of this kind, they still have an animal side, covered on under the surface. I believe the development of the word gains its origins in the human universe itself. As human life developed, and our knowledge of the sciences and the technological environment, we stopped referring back so much that first sense.

Animals stopped being thought of as holding human qualities, except for in storybooks, and there, within lies the change. Society removed its importance on human conditions in animals, and that left a gap in our collective minds. That given room for the inferred shift that changed the meaning, as society began placing animalistic qualities on people. Because of this, we also recognized, however unintentionally, that monster affects us personally, and that they were no longer childish fairy tales. The word monster isn’t all that strange from what it once was. Time has just somewhat altered its meaning or changed to whom the word applies.

Monsters do a big deal of cultural work, but they do not do it happily. They not only challenge and question; they disturb, they bother, they haunt.

They shatter and tear and break cultures, all the while creating them and propping them up. They consume up our social mores and expectations, and then, becoming what they feed, they return to us our features, made sickening or, maybe, revealed always to have been so. All monsters from lifeless to bestial dragons to the amorphous, disembodied forces of the virus. all “monsters” are our forms, even those that can clearly be sketched to “real,” accurately known beings conjoined twins and hermaphrodites, for example, as seen through pre-current eyepieces; through the means by which we build or rebuild them, we classify, title, and name them, and thereby give them anthropocentric meaning that makes them “ours.” Monsters are overlooking, dangerous beings best known for causing illusions including battling heroes. Stories are told of their destructive powers, but also of their painful defeats. Monsters are symbols of the natural evil of human nature and the dark truths of the real world. Monsters are also hard tasks a hero must complete.

Sometimes monsters are the ultimate standard of a hero’s value, other times just another step in a hero’s fight. One of the most exciting kinds of Greek mythology is probably the depiction of monsters in the tales. However, these monsters are not all different. They all fall into very different categories, making them almost alike. Most monsters in Greek mythology view and behave in the same ways. Several monsters from these myths look alike in that they have very similar traits such as being significant, snake or human alike.

However, they are also much alike in that they act in very similar ways, from overlooking something or roaming easily and causing chaos. Generally, the monsters in Greek mythology follow this plan and are described in a way to show these qualities. Monsters are representations or imageries of social tensions. For instance, in familiar terms, vampires represent our terrors and passions about sex; zombies represent our fear of the people and loss of individuality; werewolves represent our animalistic selves and the change into aggression; ghosts represent past of traumatic experiences and troubled memories; witches represent the male. It’s not usual to hear ‘monster’ applied in sports.

Frequently it is used to describe a professional large. This associates it back to the version of the word used during the Middle Ages to represent an individual with deformities or abnormalities. With all this transformation and growth, it can be hard to see what has stayed the same. After all, how do you get from a griffin, a skillful creature with some human characteristics, to a person with a wild streak? But it all gets back to the initial definition, a creature that is half animal, half human. A centaur is a person with the body of a horse or a horse by the shape of a man. That bond is easy enough.

But a killer is a person, at least from the end. On the inside, though, possibly not so much. People are distinct from other animals because of our capacity to feel, to follow a set of morals that we choose for ourselves.

From the Books that go from 9 through 12 of The Odyssey are filled with first-rate distinct impressions: blood and bones, evil monsters, daring escapes, sexually ravenous sorceresses, and more. But anyhow deployed, these same impressions could make up the parts of a tawdry melodrama. It is the ability with which they are embedded in the story that makes them spring off the page in such a compelling way. A character who grows increasingly influential throughout the story, however, is Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. Like Odysseus, Telemachus is beginning his journey in an essential sub-plot to Odysseus’s return trip to Ithaca. By examining this sub-plot and the quality and trials of Telemachus, the reader can predict how Ithaca will go on once Odysseus dies. Telemachus is replacing in his father’s footsteps, and Ithaca will be in safe hands.

Furthermore, The Odyssey, consider the nature of dad and son relationships in The Odyssey by Homer and believe in the context of Greek society. The Women in His World Homer’s timeless Greek drama, “The Odyssey” describes the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he strives through many barriers in his journey to return to his home, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. Even though Odysseus is the protagonist of the excellent poem, he is not introduced to the public until Book V. Odysseus’ tale starts as he is the honored guest of Alcinous in the area of the Phaeacians. It is during this flashback that the audience. After reading The Odyssey poem, it is visible that no matter what barrier he and his men face, great or small, Odysseus’ character stays the same. In the poem, The Odyssey Homer explores and chronicles the life of a man named Odysseus. Many of Odysseus’ god­like traits are apparent throughout the many difficulties he and his men face.

Odysseus is a very smart, courageous, and strong man. Its characters, their difficulties, barriers, and their morals make their way into our lives as well. The morals and ideas of the Greeks describe to us through stories and organize themselves into our mind. I believe the Odyssey to be an allegory, suggesting it has two parts of argument to it. The barriers, difficulties, and aims to relate to our modern day lives. Heroes are not gods; they aren’t The God. They are pseudo-humans who have to strive with normal problems, with some unusual things thrown in there. In Homer’s “The Odyssey,” Odysseus, the protagonist, proves he is an epic hero through his conflicts with human, natural, and superhuman adversaries. He showed his brilliance and bravery.

Odysseus also made choices to help himself and his team. First of all, Odysseus made decisions to benefit himself and his team. When he and his crew approached the island of the Lotus Eaters, the natives presented some of the Lotus. The lotus made them forget the desire to return home. The poem is appointed with suspenseful and touching scenes of the human knowledge. As a mother and son await the come back of their loved ones, Odysseus has to fight through treacherous cases and tribulation to reach his local soil and his people.

But Odysseys’ preparation to live a life off from home before the Trojan War. In story of the succession is one of hatred, wrath, greed, and revenge in which wives betray their men, fathers cage their children, and sons seize their fathers’ power. In several cases, the gods are produced into sexual relations, but there is little sense that these bonds create a sense of family, respect, or support. Gaia, the mother of all, shows her partner and the father of her children, Ouranos, who immediately begins to act like a dictator, holding his offspring whom he desires and loathes for their ‘overwhelming strength.’ This action antagonizes Gaia, who then begins plotting against Ouranos to punish him for his evil and devises the plan by which her son Kronos fiercely castrates and overcomes his father. The shameful father is ruined by the shameful act of his son, aided by his wife-consort.

Ouranos then blames his sons and predicts they will be punished for their action. Fearing his parent’s prescience, Kronos gulps down his children as they are born. Regretting, his sister-wife Rhea then advances to her parents for guidance. In retaliation for his wicked way of his parents and kids, Ouranos, Gaia, and Rhea hatch a plan to trick Kronos and allow Zeus to grow big enough to challenge his father and eventually defeat him in a devastating war. In taking his revenge upon his father, Zeus is portrayed as doing with redemption, righting past mistakes, and enjoying the assistance of those he rules. The plan by which Zeus escapes being eaten and is allowed to grow and increase is first mentioned in the setting of bringing the Fury down on Kronos by punishing the Titan for his sins. In this way, Zeus is seen as a mean of justice. Zeus frees his held uncles, the Cyclopes, who then in response give him thunder and lightning, the weapons with which he will conquer his father and the Titans.

The same is right of Kottos, Gyes, and Briareus, the hundred-handed monsters, who challenge for Zeus out of recognition for being freed. 

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Cruelty and Monsters in Homer's The Odyssey and Other Books. (2022, Apr 09). Retrieved April 25, 2024 , from
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