The Odyssey Questions Book 9: When does Odysseus reveal his identity
Book 9
- When does Odysseus reveal his identity? How has he been careful in keeping that information to himself from Books 5-8?
- List Odysseus’ tales in the order that he tells them. What patterns of meaning do you find emerging from this order?
- Patterns aside, what do the individual stories Odysseus recounts tell us about him and his men? For example, what makes Odysseus a worthy leader? Does he make mistakes while leading his men? How is he better than his men? Are there dangers in his strengths?
- This is actually a question for books 9-12 as a unit, but I’ll ask it here: why is it important that Odysseus recount all his wanderings as past events? Why doesn’t Homer simply construct his epic as a linear (i.e. “straight-line”) progression of events from the Trojan War onward?
