Mythical Characters
Mortal (Human) Characters
Ancient Greece: its Cultural Values and Fatal Flaws
Plot
Basic Background Information
100
This goddess, described as "unmatched, witty, and queen of the best strategies we've seen" in Epic: the Musical, helped Odysseus and Telemachus by intervening whenever she could. In the graphic novel, she has a blue glow to her.
Who is Athena?
100
The main character of the story--the king of Ithaca who undertakes the titular Odyssey.
Who is Odysseus?
100
This is the ancient Greek custom of hospitality.
What is xenia?
100
This character curses Odysseus after his son's eye is poked out by Odysseus and his men in their attempt to escape.
Who is Poseidon?
100
This ancient Greek poet wrote both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Some scholars believe that they weren't even one person, but multiple writing under the same name.
Who is Homer?
200
This cyclops traps Odysseus and his men in his cave. After they blind him to help them escape, he prays to his father, Poseidon, to curse them.
Who is Polyphemus?
200
This son of Odysseus travels to Pylos and Sparta to learn news of his father's whereabouts.
Who is Telemachus?
200
Odysseus exhibits this ancient Greecian cultural value when he kills all the suitors after he's come home.
What is "revenge is justified, even if it involves killing"?
200
Odysseus and his men go here to meet a prophet named Tiresias who tells them what they must do to get home safely.
What is the Land of the Dead?
200
This literary device interrupts the sequence of events in a narrative to tell about earlier events. Books 9-12 of The Odyssey where Odysseus tells the Phaecians about his travels are a good example.
What is a flashback?
300
These creatures lure sailors to their deaths with their song, and in Epic they mimic Penelope's voice.
Who are the Sirens?
300
This Queen finds herself and her home besieged by suitors in her husband's absence.
Who is Queen Penelope of Ithaca?
300
Odysseus exhibits this hamartia, or fatal flaw, throughout the course of the book.
What is excessive pride?
300
Penelope knits this to keep the suitors at bay. Little do they know that she undoes her work every night, so she ends up making no progress for three years!
What is a death shroud?
300
This is a figure of speech used when giving human like features to non human objects.
What is personification?
400
This nymph--a daughter of Atlas--held Odysseus on her island for 7 years as her lover.
Who is Calypso?
400
This man lives in despair and decline until Odysseus gets home, tending a farm when we meet him.
Who is Odysseus' father, Laertes?
400
Queen Penelope exhibits this ancient Grecian cultural value by allowing the suitors to stay while they try to court her, allowing them to eat as much as they wanted. They promptly abuse her kindness.
What is Xenia?
400
Athena disguises Odysseus as this once he gets home, so no one will recognize him.
Who is an old beggar?
400
20 years
What is how long Odysseus has been away from home?
500
This witch turned Odysseus' men into pigs. Odysseus survived a similar fate thanks to Hermes, who helped point out an herb that would could counteract her magic.
Who is Circe?
500
This maid is one of the first to recognize Odysseus after seeing a scar on his foot.
Who is Eurycleia?
500
Odysseus' dog, Argos, exhibits this ancient Greecian cultural value...for the one page we see him on.
What is loyalty?
500
Penelope tests Odysseus in this way when he has returned home. He crashes out at the thought, proving it's him, and they kiss and make love to each other all night.
What is asking a servant to move their wedding bed?
500
A long poem, typically derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
What is an epic?