| Read the excerpt from The Odyssey.Neither reply nor pity came from him, but in one stride he clutched at my companions and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies to beat their brains out, spattering the floor. Then he dismembered them and made his meal, gaping and crunching like a mountain lion—everything: innards, flesh, and marrow bones.What can be inferred about the Cyclops? | He is savage and brutal like a wild animal. |
| Nohbdy, Nohbdy’s tricked me, Nohbdy’s ruined me!’ To this rough shout they made a sage reply:’Ah well, if nobody has played you foul there in your lonely bed, we are no use in pain given by great Zeus. Let it be your father, Poseidon Lord, to whom you pray.’So sayingthey trailed away. And I was filled with laughterto see how like a charm the name deceived them.In the excerpt, the word “charm” is being compared with | name |
| Why nottake these cheeses, get them stowed, come back, throw open all the pens, and make a run for it?We’ll drive the kids and lambs aboard. We sayput out again on good salt water!’Ah,how sound that was! Yet I refused. I wishedto see the caveman, what he had to offer—no pretty sight, it turned out, for my friends.Based on this excerpt, what inference can be made about Odysseus? Check all that apply. | Odysseus’s curiosity about the Cyclops is stronger than his good judgment.Odysseus wants to see if the Cyclops has anything to give to him and his men. |
| O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions? Puny, am I, in a Caveman’s hands?How do you like the beating that we gave you,you damned cannibal? Eater of guestsunder your roof! Zeus and the gods have paid you!’According to this excerpt, Odysseus | is prideful and overly confident. |
| Neither reply nor pity came from him, but in one stride he clutched at my companions and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies to beat their brains out, spattering the floor.The epic simile in this excerpt shows | how helpless Odysseus’s men are in the clutches of the Cyclops. |
| Here are the means I thought would serve my turn:a club, or staff, lay there along the fold—an olive tree, felled green and left to season for Cyclops’ hand. And it was like a mast a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam—a deep-sea-going craft—might carry: so long, so big around, it seemed.Based on the epic simile, how should the reader picture the beam of wood Odysseus found in the cave? | like the mast of an enormously large ship |
| Then,his chores being all dispatched, he caught another brace of men to make his breakfast, and whisked away his great door slab to let his sheep go through—but he, behind,reset the stone as one would cap a quiver.What two things are being compared in this epic simile? | the stone to a quiver |
| Then,his chores being all dispatched, he caught another brace of men to make his breakfast, and whisked away his great door slab to let his sheep go through—but he, behind,reset the stone as one would cap a quiver.The use of the epic simile in this excerpt helps readers understand that | the enormous stone is easily and routinely moved by the giant Cyclops. |
| My ship?Poseidon Lord, who sets the earth a-tremble, broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end. A wind from seaward served him, drove us there. We are survivors, these good men and I.’What motivates Odysseus to tell a lie to the Cyclops? | Odysseus does not want to reveal their only means of escape. |
| In the next land we found were Cyclopes, giants, louts, without a law to bless them.In ignorance leaving the fruitage of the earth in mysteryto the immortal gods, they neither plownor sow by hand, nor till the ground, though grain— wild wheat and barley—grows untended, andwine-grapes, in clusters, ripen in heaven’s rain.Cyclopes have no muster and no meeting,no consultation or old tribal ways,but each one dwells in his own mountain cave dealing out rough justice to wife and child,indifferent to what the others do.What inference can be made about the Cyclopes? | They are uncivilized creatures who are potentially dangerous. |
The Odyssey: Central Ideas and Character Motivation, Part 2
April 17, 2020