The Odyssey theme

  Loyalty is something that today we look for in everyone and those who are loyal get rewarded with our friendship and in return our loyalty to them.  So the theme is be loyal to your companions no matter what, and you will be content.  Odysseus valued loyalty to him and his orders very highly.  Unfortunately Odysseus lost the loyalty of many of his companions and they paid the price.   In book 12 Odysseus tells the crew to not kill the cows on the island or they will all die and lose their ship.  But the Crew does not listen to him and eventually kill the cows and eat them.  Page 282 line 397-401 "I groaned in anguish, crying out to the deathless gods; Father Zeus! the rest of you blissful gods who never die you with your fatal sleep, you lulled me into disaster.  Left on their own, look what a monstrous thing my crew concocted!"  Odysseus’s crew was disloyal and did not follow his orders and because of it they angered the gods.  Who later would destroy the crew and his ship.

Another example would be when Odysseus returned to his own country only to find that suitors and most of the women had betrayed him.  The suitors believing that he was dead were trying to marry his wife Penelope and were squandering away his household.  So Odysseus tested each person to see if they were still loyal to him.  When he finally revealed himself he killed all those who were not loyal and saved those who were.  “Look your crucial test is finished, now, at last!  But another target’s left that no one’s hit before- we’ll see if I can hit it- Apollo give me glory! But Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous Square in the throat and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck and out.”   Page 439-440 lines 5-7 and 15-16.  The Suitors did not stay loyal and they paid a heavy price.  Even the maids who did not stay with him were given a dishonorable death. 

The best example of loyalty is in Odysseus’s wife Penelope.  She waited for him to return for many long years.  All those years many power thirsty suitors tried to win her over so they could be king.  Every night she wept for her husband to return and every night she refused the suitors advances.  After the many years of being refused the suitors started to get frustrated and demanded that she pick one of them.  So she devised a cleaver plan to have a contest.  This contest would be to string Odysseus’s old bow and shoot an arrow through the handles of many axes.  “Sly old fox maybe he’s got bows like it, stored in his house.  That or he’s bent on making one himself.  Look how he twists and turns in his hands.  The clever tramp means trouble.”  Page 437 lines 445-449 “Just as he sat but aiming straight and true, he let fly and never missing an ax from the first ax-handle clean on through to the last and out the shaft with its weighted brazen head shot free!”  Page 437-438 lines 468-471.  Penelope knew that only her husband could complete this magnificent task and by doing this she unknowingly revealed her husband Odysseus to everyone.  She had already used many things to push back the suitor’s requests.  I think that Penelope being loyal for so long is a great example of love keeping two people together through difficult times.                  

What is a Man

What Is a Man

Quote 1.  Macbeth: "I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none."                Lady Macbeth:    What beast was ’t, then,  That made you break this enterprise to me?  When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man. Nor time nor place did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now.  (act 1 scene 7 lines 5-60)  

Context:  Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are arguing about whether or not to kill Duncan the King.  Macbeth is having second thoughts and his wife is trying to convince him to continue with the plan.  Lady Macbeth insults him saying that if he does not continue he is not a man and she follows up with saying that if he does continue that he would be much more than a man but a king. 

Explanation:  Lady Macbeth is questioning his manliness and hopes that by insulting him he will respond to prove her wrong and go along with the plan.  She does not think that Macbeth has the guts to go through with it.  So Macbeth taking the bait decides to prove his manliness and go through with the plan.    

 Quote 2. Malcolm:  Be this the whetstone of your sword.  Let grief convert to anger.  Blunt not the heart; enrage it.   (Act 4 scene 3 lines 268-269)

Context:  Malcolm is trying to get Macduff to turn his grief over the death of his wife and kids into anger that he can use to fight against Macbeth.  This way he will not be distracted by grief but focused by anger.

Explanation:  Shakespeare is showing that a true man does not let his grief get in the way instead he uses that grief to empower himself with anger.  It is also implying that if he does not do this he will blunt his sword and have less of a chance of revenge against Macbeth.          

Quote 3.  Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.  Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty.  Make thick my blood.  Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, (act 1 scene 5 lines 45-51)

Context:  Lady Macbeth has just received the letter from Macbeth telling her of the prophecy of the weird sisters.  She is worried that her husband will not have the guts to do what is needed to be done to become king so she asks him to become a cruel man. 

Explanation:  Lady Macbeth is saying that only a cruel and evil man could do such a horrible thing.  So to be turned into a man would give her the chance to take advantage of the sisters prophecy.  Essentially she wanted to become heartless like evil men.  This way she will not feel any guilt for what she would do.       

Quote 4.  How is ‘t with me when every noise appalls me?  What hands are here!  Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.  Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?  No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.  (Act 2 scene 2 lines 76-81) 

Context:  Macbeth has just killed the King and is feeling regret in doing it.  He feels as though if he would wash the blood from his hands in the ocean it would turn red.  With his hands never being able to be clean of the kings blood. 

Explanation:  This passage shows that a man can feel remorse for evil things that he has done.  Macbeth is afraid of every small noise thinking that someone might have heard or seen what he did.  The guilt was almost too much for him to take.      

Quote 5. Lady Macduff:  He had none.  His flight was madness.  When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.  (Act 4 scene 2 lines 3-5)

Context:  Ross a servant is trying to justify why Macduff left for England without them.  But his wife does not agree and says that his fears betrayed them and made him a traitor to his family by leaving.  Ross tells them they need to also flee but they do not get a chance to. 

Explanation:  Lady Macduff is implying that his fears of dying led him to betray his family and leave them behind.  A true man would have not fled from his fears but instead kept strong with his family.  Lady Macduff goes on to say that he is dead to them and is no longer the children’s father. 

     http://classiclit.about.com/od/macbethshakespeare/a/aa_macbethquote_3.htm