That brings us to the topic of Seareach. Now Seareach is just a very arrogant young man who is totally oblivious of Odysseus¡¯s status back home. As you just saw in the play, as soon as Seareach saw a ¡°weakness¡±, he immediately went up to Odysseus and called him ¡°the skipper of some tramp that crawled from one port to the next, a tallier of cargoes, itching for gold¡±. For Odysseus, this was absolutely ridiculous. Here¡¯s some young inexperienced Phaikian who came to the conclusion that he was of low birth because he never learned a sport. Odysseus loses his temper at this point and calls Seareach ¡°a man of fine physique, with an empty noddle¡±. He then goes on to prove his athletic abilities by tossing the discus further than anyone else. Homer taught us a great lesson in this incident, and that is not to judge people by their looks. Odysseus even said it himself that ¡°in looks, a man be a shade, a specter, and yet be master of speech so crowned with beauty that people gaze at him with pleasure¡±. This is a foreshadow relating to later in the book where the suitors treat Odysseus horribly because he was dressed as a beggar.
So in this book, we finally discover how human the characters are. They are not that different from us actually. They have conflicts just like we do. They are emotional human beings just like some of us.
Bibliography: Odyssey by Homer
Bibliography: Odyssey by Homer
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