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Odyssey

Added Dec 03, 2015 •

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This is the video explaining the Odyssey as a Campbellian Hero's Journey. Take good notes on it as this WILL be on your final exam. You will be asked to match the plot to the Campbell story element.

Show Transcript

hey everyone so this is a video discussing Odysseus in the context of a chem billion and it's my first time doing a video so hopefully I do this right and we'll see what happens I'm also my house is really noisy because I have a 1 year old and 2 dogs just ignore it self the story of Odysseus and his journey home  alright we're going to start with the Call to Adventure Odysseus is the king of his own Island that is Ithaca he's married to Penelope goes already know that from having read the Penelope it just some background Penelope is Helen of Troy cousin they have one son together his name is telemachus and the day that telemachus is born Odysseus actually has to leave for war so he only gets to see his 1 as a one day old baby he won't see him again until he's 20 years old so at the beginning of this of the Trojan War before it even happened Odysseus was actually a Suitor for Helen so he goes to where Helen is from Sheezus turn the princess and he goes to her hometown and he is one of the suitors that was vying for her hand in marriage Helen didn't choose him obviously so he went and married where cousin Penelope was a much better match for him but because there were so many suitors her father made all of them was that if anything happened to Helen that all the suitors would come to the aid of her and whatever husband she chose so this isn't open and if anyone breaks it it's on pain of death so that puts Odysseus in a pretty bad position because eventually Helen left her who is Menelaus she chose him because he was extremely rich and she left him for Paris a Trojan prince who is Young and handsome and very pretty Menelaus has a very powerful brother named Agamemnon he goes to his brother and says my wife left me Paris stole her we got to get those Trojans cannon on sees this as a great opportunity to wage war and gain more money and power and so they call on all the suitors to come to his Aid to go to war over Helen which means that they show up at Odysseus's door because he was very famous for being crafty and intelligent and they knew they needed him so that is called to Adventure Menelaus shows up at his door and tells Odysseus you swore an honor oath you have to go to war self refusal of the call happens in the story because they're just does not want to go to work he has absolutely no reason to no he has his own Island he has a wife he's very happy with in a child that was just born and he thinks the war is stupid so he doesn't want to go he says no and pretends to be insane so he starts acting crazy saying crazy things foaming at the mouth he start showing his land with salt so that Menelaus and Agamemnon leave him alone but Agamemnon knows Odysseus very well he doesn't buy it and so what he does as he takes telemachus Odysseus's newborn baby boy throws the baby I mean well I guess not throws him but gently places him in front of the route of Odysseus's plow knowing that if we're just we're truly in he would run his child over ink kill him so Odysseus obviously is not insane he saves the baby and so what Emma says sorry but you're not in saying you're coming with us you are going off to work what he didn't know was that he would be leaving for 20 years so that is refusal of the Odysseus resist the adventure resist the call to the war and pretends to be insane  Supernatural so there's a lot going on in this life but basically Odysseus really does not believe in the gods he believes that they are the Paws of all of humans problems and so he at the end of the Trojan War which have gone on for 10 years decided that he didn't need the gods and he I'm going to make sacrifices to Poseidon like everybody else was doing this really upset Poseidon and it wasn't very smart on Odysseus's part because grease everything is in the Mediterranean you're talking about lots and lots of islands and the only way to get anywhere is by sailing there so you really want to have Poseidon on your good side and he decided to be really arrogant about it and he exhibits what the Greeks call hubris and hubris is absolute SF Pride but it's Pride to the point where you think that nothing can touch you like you are so awesome nobody can get to you not even the gods so he refused to make sacrifice to Poseidon and in turn he pisses off a lot of a lot of different gods everybody who's connected with Poseidon a lot of his children lot of the other gods don't like it there's one goddess however who really likes Odysseus and that is Athena so Athena is kind of his Patron goddess she takes Odysseus for weighing an even though he still refuses to pay tribute to the gods cuz he thinks that they are the root of all evil Athena still likes him and she helps him on his way she's always there to offer advice she's there to give him help when he needs it and in the end of the story she's actually the one who puts him back on the throne and that's because she really admires his craft away she is the best of wisdom and the goddess of crafts and Odysseus is Crafty so that works out well I also have on here that he came up with the Trojan Horse that was all his idea they couldn't have won the war without him so Supernatural here is that Athena is helping her out so stop number one on his journey home is actually what we call crossing the first threshold so just to recap what crossing the first threshold is that is the the heroes first step into the unfamiliar on their Journey or their first encounter with the weird so Odysseus refuses to make sacrifice to Poseidon any goes about his journey anyway and she ends up on an island and he has a whole crew with them of the lotus-eaters okay about this island and they're running out of so he sends his men out from the ship to go check it out in to find some resources see what they can bring back Odysseus stays behind on the ship his men go about their business and they're looking around and they meet some of the inhabitants and the inhabitants are called the Lotus Eaters and they say hey Greek Sailors would you next some of our local Cuisine and they say sure we're pretty hungry and we've been eating like seaweed for the last 2 weeks so yeah why not so they eat the lotus flower that was the local Cuisine the problem is that the lotus flower with a psychotropic drug and they eat it forget who they are and just kind of sit there and all the pretty colors go back to see us as wondering what happened to his men he gets off the ship back to the ship and slap some sense into them it's the first time that Odysseus is coming into contact with something that's very unfamiliar very kind of weird on this journey home everything else was pretty familiar to him up to that point Odysseus was a warrior he was a king he knew a lot what's Mediterranean but he'd never heard of the lotus-eaters before so that's crossing the first Rush old  stop number 2 is where he stops at the island of the sea peace and this is going to fall in line with the belly of the whale there's actually two instances of the story of the belly of the whale and this is the first one so the cyclopes just to recap our Giants with one big eye in the middle of their forehead and they all happen to live on this island where Odysseus yes shows up how convenient cyclopes were actually Shepherd's a very very very large sheet so they each have a cave every Cyclops has their own number they live in and they they heard these sheep everyday who decide we need to go exploring because we need more supplies as happens to them a lot and they enter one of these caves that happened to be empty they went in they made themselves at home and they ate as the original translation says all the good wine and and they're eating all the stuff they're hanging out having a good time and the owner of the cave comes home his name is polyphemus and he says what are you do in my house I'm kind of hungry right now I'm going to snack on a few of you so he eat several of the sailors he eats to the crew members for dinner he eats another two for breakfast and it's not real fun for anyone I'm continuing on with that so basically you know there's this whole story I think I told it to you in class of how Odysseus offers the Cyclops wine and the Cyclops says gee thank you what's your name and Odysseus as my name is nobody that's hey my name is nobody  so polyphemus drinks the wine he falls asleep Odysseus that has a chance to sharpen a giant stick he add polyphemus in the eye while he's sleeping the original translation says that it's sizzles like an egg on a fire and he blinds him and well polyphemus is screaming in pain he says nobody is killing me and nobody is killing me and I was little Cyclops friends wander up to his cave and they say are you okay polyphemus and he says no can we meet and they say okay have a good night and they leave so now polyphemus is blind so the next morning policy must let his sheep out cuz he has to go about his life and Odysseus and what's left of his crew have to get out polyphemus can't see Odysseus and his men but he feeling each sheep as it goes out of the cave to make sure that it's not one of the discus and his men so just gets an idea he thinks okay great we have giant sheep we have some what's tire sales to the bottom of the sheep and we'll just go on out with them and that's what happens so Odysseus and his men get back safely to their shift once left of them an icy sailing away because he has so much pride Odysseus screams at polyphemus hey you big stupid Cyclops my name is not nobody my name is Odysseus and he sails away the problem was that polyphemus happened to be the son of Poseidon who is already pretty upset at Odysseus for not paying tribute to him so now Poseidon is like a cave that's it you're not going home. I'm going to make your life a living hell and that's kind of what happens there so Belly of the whale is back to Odysseus is stuck in that Cyclops cave and really thinks that that's kind of the end but dude his cleverness he's able to get out of the situation so stop number 3 and the next couple of things are part of the root of Trials I'll just go through them really quickly so it's a series of things stop in that kind of getting his way from achieving his ultimate goal he is upon the island of a guy named aeolus aeolus is the king of the Winds and aeolus is really kind of him gives him a bag of winds and says this will help you get home but Odysseus doesn't tell his man what's in the bag and just as there are within sight of Ithaca and his men think he's gold and so they steal the bag they open it it blows them all the way back to aeolus who then will not help them anymore  and they run into if play the problems but the major one here that he runs into is Cersei hands up on the island of a sorceress whose name is Cersei and this is considered woman as there are two instances of this in this story so this is the first one and this man and another Island you go searching for supplies and Odysseus stays on the ship just as always to see a pattern here so they run into a woman who is sitting there and she's surrounded by all these animals that are sitting at her feet and she says hello sailor are you hungry you look famished would you like a cupcake that I just made and they say sure so they eat the cupcake I don't know what it really was turn they all turn into pigs and that's what she's been doing she has been turning men who stopped on her Island into animals so she turns his entire crew into pigs and if lowers goodbye in Odysseus's like oh my god what have they gotten into now and he decides to go out looking for his men on his way he runs into Hermes and hermy says what's up so there's a witch that lives on this island don't eat anything she gives you if you do eat anything take this antidote first so he gives antidote and Odysseus goes on his way he takes it he meets her say she offers him food but he doesn't turn into a pig when he eats it so he threatens to kill her he says if you don't turn my man back into men I am going to be very upset and I'm going to kill you and she says okay no problem so it's kind of interesting to hear that Hermes who is another one of the Gods is helping him on his way when he has said that the gods are pretty much and that happens a lot throughout his journey  so seriously you turns the men back into men  and because no one has ever stood up to her like this before she falls completely head over heels in love with Odysseus kind of messed up but that's what happens if actually staying there with her for an entire year and some versions of the story The actually have a son together a lot of people misinterpret this as him being unfaithful to Penelope but you have to take it in what text that this is a different time and a different culture where men could be unfaithful and it wasn't considered adultery for women it was very different store women had to remain Chase and they had to remain completely faithful to their husbands men on the other hand it wasn't a big deal for them so if you take it in that context just because is basically unfaithful to Penelope that doesn't mean that he doesn't love her because the rest of the story he spends trying to get back to her he's actually offered immortality and riches and gold and a whole other Kingdom if he marries these other women that are thrown into his path but he chooses not to chooses to go back home to his first love Penelope and that's the whole point of the story so price to tempt him away from his ultimate goal by keeping him there on the island with her for a year eventually though he comes to his and he realizes I really do need to go back home to Penelope  she decides to send him on his way and because she is a witch she has a it's that other people don't have she tells him that if you really do want to get home you have to go to the underworld first and when you get to the underworld you're going to meet a man named Therese yes he's a prophet he's dead but you got to go talk to him cuz he will tell you your future and how you are going to get home so that is where Odysseus goes to next again this was meeting with the goddess Cersei tempt him away from his ultimate goal Belly of the whale in the story sometimes it's the underworld what time is it's just something that's representative of death and they have to return from it cuz it's all in a moral kind of Chief so actually asks help from a Titan whose name is oceana's the ocean is helps him sail to the underworld he gets there by water at the entrance of the the world and I think you guys read about this in class with the Book of the Dead for the Odyssey he has to make a sacrifice of milk and blood to feed the ghost switch Rihanna meets them and then they're able to talk to him he runs into a few different people and that's what the Book of the Dead was talking about he runs into actually his mother who had died you didn't know that she had he runs into some of his dead comrades from the Trojan War and he talks with them and they catch up a little bit and then he runs into Teresa's the blind who was going to tell him what his fate was Odysseus am I ever going to get home and Teresa says yes you will make it home but you will be alone and on someone else's ship which means that somewhere in the course of his journey his ship is going to be destroyed and all his men going to be killed off the only one to hear this information so he keeps it to himself because he's kind of selfish he knows that he has to use people to what he wants so he leaves the underworld with this information knowing that he's going to make it out of it but it's going to be many years ahead that he's going to lose all his men and he has to watch each one of them died along the way in order to get home to Penelope his belly of the whale that is the underworld okay it's not change your situation but it's definitely a situation which has danger in its okay is he runs into Sirens he runs into the clashing rocks yada yada he gets through them all right the story the sirens we kind of went over that when we talked about monster so not going to go into it now  is he runs into charybdis Whirlpool of death decides not to deal with her so he deals Scylla and we talked about Scylla and charybdis before Scylla was a sea monster and she was a 6 headed dog from the waist down so tell us he's going to lose six men but that he has to deal with her anyway so he goes through that he takes the hit she eats six of his men so he's six people down survived after that and then we get to stop number 6 which is the cattle of the sun basically there was a Titan who kept keep their his name is Helios and he said hey Odysseus you're welcome here don't touch my cows and or did you said no problem but then he went and took a nap and his men ate all the cows cuz they really really hungry so he got upset he went to Zeus and said this is not cool and Sue said no problem I'll just destroy Odysseus's ship so he does so Odysseus's ship he is now left without a crew and without his ship just as Teresa said and that brings us to stop number 7 is the island of Calypso Calypso is in minor goddess and he happened to sail like not sail he didn't have a ship he happened to Flo on a piece of Driftwood over to her Island this is considered meeting with the goddess and also woman as temptress number to Okay so Arise at the island of calypso and he actually lives there with her for 7 years because she was completely smitten with him so Odysseus play there with her a little bit not his choice it was mostly for choice and Calypso loved him as though he were her husband even though he wasn't but couldn't forget about Penelope and he never did and one day Hermes showed up on the island of calypso and said Zeus has decided that you've been punished enough and he needs to go home so Calypso you must release him so Calypso has to do this because Zeus has ordered it but she use the choice up to Odysseus she offers them immortality and she offers him Eternal youth to stay with her and she warns him that the wife that he left behind not going to be the same woman that she will be much much older and she's going to keep getting older but she would always stay young and beautiful and that he could have that too he stayed with her and Odysseus because of Penelope is his one true love refuses the immortality refuses Calypso and decides to leave the he builds a raft and he sails on to home so that is again woman as temptress because she offers him immortality to stay with her instead of getting back home to Penelope we also consider it meeting with the goddess because she sets him back on once he refuses her she says okay no problem and she helps him build a raft and sends him on his way so that encourages him to get back on track okay that is a cast the last 10 years here's what's been happening from Penelope's point of you how you kind of know that from reading the Penelope it but just a kind of glass so for the last 10 years had been run over by hundreds and hundreds of suitors who believed Odysseus to be dead Penelope woman cannot rule on her own she has to remarry and telemachus is not old enough to rule so he was kind of no help in that sense so they're all there and they're according Penelope which is not actually what they're doing because in real life all they really wanted was his riches and also there were set Hospitality back in these days so if those men show up she by law has to cater to their every wish she has to feed them she has to entertain them she is provide them a place to live so they're just spending time wasting all of his possessions  Penelope had remained for 10 years she never believed that Odysseus was dead even though everyone else did and so she has to kind of stall for time so she decided what she's going to do is she's going to weave a cloak it's actually going to be a burial cloak for her father-in-law who is it dead yet but she wants to get a head start on it so she tells all the suitors listen I will choose a Suitor worthy of me after I'm done weaving this cloak and they're like yeah I no problem because they're perfectly comfortable just eating drinking all day long  so what she does is for three years by day she leaves the cloak so that they see that she's working on it and by night she would undo she had done that day in the fourth year one of her Maids actually let it slip to one of the suitors what she had been doing and then they forced her to make a decision and it's at that point that a disk shows up and this is the return okay so this is the point of story that is the return he shows up on shores of Ithaca  and he's ready to run right into the palace but Athena stops him and she says you can't run in there you need to go check it out because if you run in there right now they'll probably kill you you need to create a plan so she disguises him to look as an old beggar and on his way up to the policy actually runs into a couple of people who recognize him one of them is his old servants whose name was you may as the other one is I wanna kiss his son who hadn't seen him in 20 years recognizes Odysseus to be his father even though he's in Disguise what do you do at spare time telemachus help him form a plan to take the palace back him to take his kingdom back right sorry that's really kind of nice is that Odysseus's dog whose name was Argus recognized that it was him and had been waiting for him for 19 years and he walked up to him realize that it was his master and he died in Odysseus's arms I don't really sad right anyway moving on soap Odysseus doesn't tell her who he is he doesn't let her in on who he is but when you're reading the actual story there's kind of a sense that they both kind of know it but they're testing each other and the reason why is because they haven't been around each other in 20 years Odysseus has no idea what she's been she's been faithful to him and same on her part she doesn't know where he's been he left her alone there to fend for herself for 20 years so they don't tell each other sure that they actually kind of know who the other is so they are testing each other which kind of makes them the perfect match because they both think the exact same way so the day of the trial happens with ears  and Odysseus is there he still dressed as a bigger and all the where is cannot even string the bow they can't even they can't even get the bowstring to shoot it and so they're all having trouble with it in Odysseus steps forth and he says I would to try and they all think will this will be good he's a bigger man than he doesn't know what he's doing will get a good laugh out of it he walks up to the axes he picks up the bow strings it effortlessly and then he proceeds to shoot it cleanly through 12 Axe Heads while he's doing that telemachus is running around the room you locking all the doors and at the end of this they're all pretty shocked Odysseus is the only one left with a weapon and he perceives to slaughter every single figure in the room so that's that and we call this atonement with the father he's taking revenge on the suitors that have done wrong to his skins and his wife  after that and your book The Penelope a kind of touched on this he also called up the 12 servant women that had been on the aisle since they were young children and he hangs every single one of them and he does this because they had been sleeping with the suitors now in all fairness they had no play some that because they were slaves they had absolutely no choice in or say and what happened to their own bodies but Odysseus said that because they had helped in dishonouring the house they had to die as well so in your book kind of explores the consequences of that but anyway this is a Tome it with the father so he Slaughters all of the suitors so the whole goal of the septic is for Odysseus to reunite with Penelope his wife and telemachus brings Odysseus into me repeat says hey Mom this is the winner of the contest it's Dad and Penelope is refusing to acknowledge that it's Odysseus she's testing him so telemachus starts  griping at her and say any why won't you recognize that this is my father and she says and this is what it's the original text we will know it from each other even better for we have signs that we know hidden from others so the whole point here is there were things that Odysseus and Penelope knew as a couple that nobody else knew and she said if he's really Odysseus he has to prove it to me he has to prove that it's really him that he knows something that only I know and no one else knows so she decides to order that her bed beam out to the barn she says hey mister bigger man who apparently I'm going to marry we aren't married yet so it wouldn't be proper for you stay in the house you have to go stay in the barn until we're officially married don't worry I'll have my bed moved out there for you so that you're more comfortable what the two of them Play Once who knew this is that her bed was actually carved out of a living olive tree and he had me for her as a wedding gift and if you move the bed then you kill the tree cuz it's still a growing tree and so he knew that he had carved it by hand and he gets really sad about this whole thing and he told her don't you dare move that tree and she says that's what I thought I knew it was you All Along The Jig Is up so in doing that they've now did each other they are kind of each other's perfect match and that is the ultimate Boon he gets his wife back completely and he also gets so that's the ultimate Boon and that also cancel the apotheosis because the apotheosis is that lightbulb moment and this is actually the apotheosis is actually Penelope she knows at that very moment that it is in fact Odysseus okay and then the ultimate Boon of course is Penelope and the kingdom so he gets everything back

Uploaded by Megan Moreau '01.

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Odyssey

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