Why is Odysseus so harsh on Eurycleia?

While bathing Odysseus, Eurycleia who was the woman who raised him as a child recognized it was Odysseus after she saw his scar on his foot. Eurycleia was brought to tears after she found out that her master had returned home and was still alive. Odysseus was scared because he has not seen this woman in 2 decades and for all he knows, she could have changed. He grabbed her by the throat and said that if she told anyone he would kill her. He did not want his plan to be revealed to the suitors before he could kill them all. It makes sense why he was so harsh on her, he has been away from his home for 2 decades, throughout most of this time suitors have been robbing him daily, showing no respect for him and his family. He wants revenge, he wants to kill these suitors, if someone tried to warn the suitors or stop him, he would not think twice about killing them.

Foreshadowing of Suitors

Here are a couple examples of foreshadowing for what could happen to the suitors in the future. "Didn't you see my son sneeze at my words? That means death will surely come to the suitors. One and all. Not a single man will escape." "But if Odysseus should ever come home, he and his son would make them pay for this outrage." "May Zeus destroy them utterly, before any harm can come to us." These three examples are all different kinds of examples The first example is very direct. Penelope is saying that all the suitors will die. The second one is indirect because he is saying that thee suitors will pay for what they are doing, but she doesn't give an exact example so we don't know exactly what will happen. The last one is a prayer to Zeus, asking him to destroy all the suitors before they harm anyone of them. These are all examples of foreshadowing into what will happen to the suitors in the future.

Odyssey - Formulaic Language

The three examples that I thought made either the most impact or gave a good interpretation the person or God is: Olympian Zeus, The Lord of Earthquake and God like Odysseus. I thought Olympian Zeus was a very powerful name for this very powerful God. Since Olympus is the home of the Greek Gods, that would make them Olympians, so "Olympian Zeus" really gave the interpretation that Zeus was very powerful and capable. The Lord of Earthquake refers to Poseidon, God of the Sea. It provides us the information to know just how much power he has, like during Book 5 when Poseidon shook and created huge waves which made it much harder for Odysseus to reach the Phaecians. God like Odysseus gave insight into how Odysseus acted and was treated. The name God like makes him sound like he is immortal and immune to anything someone tries to throw at him, which seems right since he survived many hardships.

Odyssey - Penelope's Role

So far Penelope has had not that big of a role in the Odyssey. She has influenced Telemachus' thoughts, she is the reason he knows that Odysseus is his father. "My mother says that Odysseus is my father." That is Telemachus talking to Athena in the middle of Book 1. She really shows her love for Odysseus, because of how she does not want to be married off to a suitor. For instance, how she weaves a robe during the day and then unweaves it during the night, she does this because she told the suitors after her hand in marriage that she would not marry one of them until she finished her robe. She was eventually caught after 3 years of doing this, this takes either a lot of dedication or she just loves to fool people, I think she did this to prolong her from being married again. So Penelope has been an influential role for Telemachus especially, she may be the reason he went off in search for his father.

Thoughts on Frederick Douglass

The thing that interested me the most, and grabbed my attention was when they were attempting to run away. Frederick and 4 other man we're going to run away, to become free men. They planned it, and the day had come when they were going to do it, but that very day they were stopped and could no longer escape. They had not ran away yet, but somehow their masters knew of their plan. They were taken to St. Michaels, which I believe is either a church or a court. There they were found guilty, because of the testimony of one person, who is left a mystery to them. My theory is that it was Sandy Jenkins, who knew about their plan, but backed out from it for some reason.

How is education related to human freedom, in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass?

Education was probably what was stopping the slaves from revolting. They were not educated enough to know about what life was like when you're not someone's property. If the slaves were not educated it would be much easier for the masters to control them. If slaves were educated, like Mr. Douglass, they would have a higher chance of escaping, because they would think it through and not just run. You could also think of freedom of the mind with this. If slaves were educated they would have a higher chance of not giving in to propaganda from their masters. Their masters could tell them that they are being treated great and they might believe it, unless they were educated.

Why is the ability to read and write a statement about freedom?

The ability to read and write, or the ability to be educated should be a basic human right. When you are taught to read and write you feel as if you can connect to others in a way that is new. You can write to someone about how bad you are being treated, or you can read about how to escape slavery. So now not everything has to be done in person and it makes it easier to get away with things. For example: on page 51 when they were trying to escape, Frederick made letters from his master saying they were permitted to be traveling on the river. It was a very smart and sneaky thing to do, if only they weren't caught. The ability to read and write relates to freedom in two ways: you can achieve freedom because you were educated and know more than people think you do, or it relates to freedom of the mind, you can understand things better, so if something were to happen you could know what was going on.

Why were slave families separated?

Slave families were separated so that they could have no hope in the world. The masters would not want them to be hopeful because then they might try to rebel and try and escape. If they have no hope they'll just keep their head down and work until they die, and that's exactly what the master wants. This made the slaves feel less human, not knowing your family would make anyone feel like less than human, or that they don't belong. Masters had many tactics to keep slaves feeling hopeless, like how they don't tell them their birthdate. They would think that if they die, who would really care? For the masters this is what they want, they want the slave to be dreadful and not disobey orders and to feel like they're not human.

MFA connection to Ancient Lyric Poetry

This is an amphora, or something used to hold liquids. On it shows a fight between two warriors, one young and one older. The younger warrior strikes down the older warrior. This could easily relate to epic poetry, which is a characteristic of Ancient Lyric Poetry, because epic poetry is about great deeds done by men. This could be considered a great deed if the younger warrior was the hero in the view of the maker. This could also relate to Lyric poetry in the way of expressing personal emotions, the Warriors could be furious with each other and wanted the other one dead. Or they could be fighting over who gets a certain thing like: land, a hand in marriage, or just because they are being forced to fight.

Comparing two Ancient Lyrical Poetry

This poem is by Tyrtaeus:

Let a man learn how to fight by first daring to perform mighty deeds,
Not where the missiles won't reach, if he is armed with a shield,
But getting in close where fighting is hard to hand, inflicting a wound
With his long spear or his sword, taking the enemy's life,
With his foot planted alongside a foot and his shield pressed against shield,
And his crest up against crest and his helm up against helm
And breast against breast, embroiled in the action--let him fight man to man,
Holding secure in his grasp haft of his sword or his spear!

The second poem is by Mimnermus:

What is life, what is sweet, if it is missing golden Aphrodite?
Death would be better by far than to live with no time for
Amorous assignations and the gift of tenderness and bedrooms,
All of those things that give youth all of its coveted bloom,
Both for men and for women. But when there arrives the vexatiousness
Of old age, even good looks alter to unsightliness
And the heart wears away under the endlessness of its anxieties:
There is no joy anymore than in the light of the sun;
In children there is found hate and in women there is found no respect.
So difficult has old age been made for us all by God!

These two poems are both very interesting. It seems as if the first one is talking about fighting an how it should be done in thee poets eyes, and the second one is talking about the hard comings of old age.

The first poem seems much more understandable, like if I were to read it once I could probably understand what it is saying. But, the second poem uses much more figures of speech to keep it more secure from the readers. At least that is what I understood from this.

They were both written around the same time and in the same area,  yet these two poems are very different. It shows how they were very advanced for their times.

"Friendly Advice to a lot if Young Men"

The title of this poem is "Friendly Advice to a lot if Young Men," it is an interesting poem. In the poem it talks about ridiculous ideas, for example: "Kill your dog" or "Break your head with a hatchet." There are also some mild lines like: "Grow a beard" or "Ride a camel." This poem is very sarcastic, because it's mostly saying these ridiculous things, then at the end the author says "But don't write poetry" as if poetry was something bad or something to stay away from. I believe many people think this is satire. The point of this poem was to make you look at it twice and think, "what on Earth did I just read!" And it did a very good job at doing that, at least for me.

"We Real Cool" interpretation

The reason why Gwendolyn Brooks put the enjambments in the poem is to emphasize. She specifically wanted to emphasize on We. We real cool. We left school, and she does that throughout the poem. The enjambments, in my opinion, are really only there to emphasize. She might have just made the stanzas that way to make it look better. When she says "We" she is obviously talking about a group of people. Maybe she is talking about a group of rebellious teenagers.

The difference between the speaker of a poem and a poet

The difference between the speaker of a poem and the poet is simple. The poet is the one writing the poem and the speaker is the one in the poem. The speaker lives in the words that the poet created. The speaker tells the story while the poet wrote it. Think of it this way, the speaker is the actor speaking the dialogue and the poet is the screenwriter. The screenwriter writes the movie, they make it come to life in a book. While the actor makes it come to life on the screen and in our minds.

Amazonian Tribes at HMNS

When we arrived at HMNS I did not know what we were there for. After we got the tickets we headed up to the third floor and waited for our tour guides. We were split up into two groups and then went into the Amazon exhibit. I don't remember every single detail, but I remember our tour guide talking to us about the different tribes in the Amazon. What they wore, what they used as tools, we also learned about other interesting things involved in their rituals or culture.

The exhibit is called "Out of the Amazon: Life on the River." Something I found very interesting was when our tour guide was telling us about the Shamans, who are practically their tribes doctor. One of the tools they used was to get a powder up the nose of someone, there was two holes, they put the bigger hole in the nose of the patient and blew powder up the smaller hole. It would usually make the patient hallucinate, someone would have to stay with you to make sure nothing happens to you, because there were reports of people dying by themselves after this powder being blown up their nose.

What I chose to do my research on was how the Amazonian river people shrunk heads. If I ever see a picture of a shrunken head I always wonder how they do that. I am specifically focusing on the Shuar tribe.

The shrunken heads were typically men's heads. The reason is because in their culture, the men
would do the hunting and they would typically be the Warriors. If another tribe attacks them, they would chop off an attackers head and they would then have the head. The next step would be to shrink it. They would take the skull and brain out of its head. Then they would sew the mouth and eyes closed so the spirit of the person could not escape from the head. Afterwards they would put rocks inside the head to keep the form in shape. They would boil the head in water and when it was finally shrunken to the size they wanted, they would take the rocks out and put sand in instead.

I think HMNS did a great job at with this exhibit. In my opinion they focused more on education, but they were able to make it fun and enjoyable as well. There were some televisions in there showing short movies about the culture of some of the tribes. In some tribes they would make children, specifically boys, go through a ritual to become adults in the tribe. They would pour bullet ants all over the child and if they showed any sign of pain they couldn't become adults in their tribe. They would have to take it again the next year and so on until they finally passed.