Comments for Lizzie Flynn

For some reason, I cannot open the file containing your paper using the 
Open Office software that I have on my HC computer today.  This is supposed to
be an open-source equivalent for the Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel, 
etc. programs, but there are some incompatibilities that crop up from 
time to time, and there is also some problem with that whole program today.
So I have to give you comments like this instead of being
able to insert them directly in the source file for the paper.  Sorry 
for the inconvenience.

Your opening paragraph sets out the main ideas of the paper well and 
the rest of the structure builds from what you say there.  You have
a clearly articulated thesis and the rest of the paper presents support
for that point of view.  So that aspect is very good.  But some of the 
points you are making are not very deep and others are questionable. 
So I would say you need to dig deeper to get to the real meanings here.  

As a general comment, I don't think we should read a piece of literature like 
the Odyssey primarily as a motivational story for us personally.  We shouldn't
expect necessarily to be "inspired by it."  There are other and deeper 
things to learn. 

For instance, at the end of the section about Odysseus's intelligence, you say 
"One of the most important lessons to take is always be on your a-game mentally."  
While being on one's mental "A-game" is certainly desirable at most times, I 
think we also have to acknowledge that Odysseus's intelligence is really special.  
His "A-game" is at a much higher level than almost anyone else's "A-game."  So 
instead of just saying we should want to be like Odysseus, I think you could also 
say a deeper reason to read this story is to see just how far an exceptional human 
intelligence can go in action.  None of us will have experiences as amazing as 
the ones Odysseus has.  But we can appreciate what this story tells us about 
human potential to prevail in difficult circumstances.  

The sentence "Even though traditional Greek polytheism ... " sounds 
funny because it is probably true that you could count the people
alive who really follow traditional Greek polytheism today without 
going into four-digit numbers (that is, there's almost no one who does
that).  The other thing that is questionable about what you are saying
about Odysseus's religious inclinations is that it sounds as though
you might be applying modern concepts of religion in ways that really don't
apply here.  For example, you mention Odysseus' "faith" or "spirituality"
several times.  If you mean by that a religious faith that is similar to 
that of Christians today, then it is very questionable that that really applies.

For the Greeks, I think it's fair to say that their gods were just a fact of life. 
The Greeks didn't need to have faith in the gods, they simply existed.  Odysseus's 
piety consists of propitiating the gods with sacrifices (this could be thanking 
them for blessings as you say, OR trying to keep bad things from happening--see below).
Odysseus tries to avoid angering his enemies among the gods when possible, and 
works with his friends among the gods (especially Athena).  

But Greek religion hardly ever involved something like "hope through faith."  
For example, one of the stories about the Greeks' travels TO the Trojan war 
was that their fleet was bottled up in the harbor of Aulis by unfavorable winds. 
Menelaus convinced his brother Agamemnon that he had to sacrifice his (Agamemnon's) 
daughter, Iphigenia, to get the goddess Artemis to let them leave, and Agamemnon 
did exactly that.  That sort of world isn't always a ``bright and hopeful place,'' 
as you say.  But that's also what Greek religion could be like! It's interesting that 
Odysseus is described as being especially pious in this sort of religion, but we shouldn't 
read too much into that in a modern way if we want to understand it in context.

Finally, you mention the scene at the very end of Book 24 as an example
of Odysseus's bravery.  Maybe, in part.  But what actually happens right at the end
of the story and how are things resolved?  Is that really an example of bravery, 
or is it an instance of a fierce and angry man being held back from making an even 
bigger mess of things, or something else?


Content/Evidence

B-

Structure/Mechanics

B+