Aim: How does “Sailing From Troy” and “The Lotus Eaters” (Book IX) establish Odysseus’ role as a leader?
Do Now: Team List
Consider the fact that Odysseus has been trying to return to his home in Ithaca for 10 years. Imagine being away from your home for that long.
What would you miss the most and why?
Why do we have sayings like the ones below?
We were put into groups to discuss the do now. Most groups had the common idea of missing their families and some talked about how they would miss their surroundings such as their house or neighborhood because it was something familiar to them. The general theme of the answers was the security of familiarity. We don’t have to worry about the dangers of the unknown because we know everything about our homes, such as our parents' food or our own bed. For the second part, we explained that the reason these saying exist is because most people agree with the fact that home is a place that is special to us.
Next we learned about direct and indirect characterization which are defined in the notes below.
Notes:
We then watched a video on the characterization of Frozen to see some examples: Characterization Lesson | Using Disney's Frozen [4:55]
After that, we continued reading The Odyssey from Sailing from Troy (lines 18-69) and answered the group questions with our breakout room.
1. We answered that Odysseus loves his home more than any other place. The evidence for this was in line 28 which states, “I shall see on earth a place more dear.” We also added that Oddyseus was captured by the loveliest goddess, Calypso, but still wanted to go home. He also shows how he doesn’t like traveling through the lines 35-37 and 46-47 where he says how he doesn’t find anything better than home when traveling and how he turned back the second he defeated Troy.
Continuing with the text, we read Lotus Eaters (lines 18-69) and completed more group work with our teams.
2. A brief summary we came up with was that Oddyseus’s ship had been swept away by a storm and landed near the Lotus Eaters. The Lotus Eaters offer Oddyseus’s crew lotuses but Odysseus realized that anyone who ate one would want to stay there forever. So, he dragged his crew with him because he wanted everyone to go home.
3. We answered that the Lotus Eaters probably lived a very relaxed lifestyle because they had all the lotuses to eat and were all very happy to stay there.
4. The Odyssey characterises the land of the Lotus eaters as a veritable paradise by describing how happy the people are who live there. Odysseus sees this as a place to escape from because he realises that the lotus is controlling them and they are not there by their own free will. We said that this place is bad because it makes you forget about everything else like how the crew didn’t want to return home after eating the lotus.
5. We explained that Odyssey seems to be a more forceful leader in “The Lotus Eaters” because he had to make a decision for his crew when they were being controlled by the lotuses. In “Sailing From Troy” he wasn’t able to convince his crew to turn back but in “The Lotus Eaters” he tied his crew to the ship to prevent them from staying with the Lotus Eaters. There were varying opinions on Odyseus. Some people said that they didn’t change their opinion on him while others said that they thought he was a better leader. These events show the progression of his character and how he is learning to be a better leader. Some also said that it further reinforces his love for his home.
We also discussed the concept of a dynamic character. A dynamic character is someone who changes and develops during the course of the story.
Reflection:
In this lesson, I learned about characterisation. Although I had a basic knowledge of it already, we delved deeper into understanding and recognizing it, especially indirect characterization. We learned this because it would help us with understanding the development of the characterization of Oddyseus. By analysing the indirect characterization of Odyseseus, we can see how he has become a better leader through his actions. Moving forward, I can use this knowledge to see how Odysseus further develops throughout the course of “The Odyssey” as well as using it to characterise other characters in the future.
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