Odysseus Relationship with Telemachus in Homers Odyssey :: Homer Odyssey Essays

Odysseus' Relationship with Telemachus in Homer's Odyssey Throughout the last books of The Odyssey Homer tells us how Odysseus restores his relationships with his friends and relatives at Ithaca. Perhaps one of the most revealing of these restoration episodes is Odysseus' re-encounter with his son, Telemachus. This re-encounter serves three main purposes. First, it serves to portray Telemachus' likeness to his father in the virtues of prudence, humility, patience, and planning. Secondly, it is Odysseus' chance to teach his son to be as great a ruler as Odysseus himself is. Lastly, Homer uses this re-encounter to emphasize the importance of a family structure to a society. To be able to understand the impact that this meeting had on Odysseus it is necessary to see that Telemachus has grown since his first appearances in the poem and obviously since his last contact with his father; Odysseus left Telemachus as an infant now their relationship is a man to man relationship rather than a man to child relationship. Of the many proofs of Telemachus' maturation three are sufficient to render an accurate account of what virtues he gained. The gained virtues shown are courage, wisdom, and prudence. Courage is shown when Telemachus decides to go around Nestor's house rather than passing through it, for Telemachus goes out to sea knowing that an ambush awaits him. This wisdom is manifested in his knowledge that if he stops Nestor's hospitality will delay him even more. And prudence is shown in Telemachus' ability to control his desires for comfort in Nestor's house and his decision to endure hardship at sea. Next Telemachus' confidence and hospitality are shown when he takes in Theochlamenos the seer. In the beginning of the poem Telemachus is not confident enough in his ability to provide hospitality to Athena disguised as Mentor, but now Telemachus is happy to provide the seer with refuge. Another proof of Telemachus' virtues is his confidence in ordering his mother and her maids to com ply with his will; their obedience shows us that he is worthy of respect. Thus Telemachus possesses the virtues necessary to be a ruler: courage, wisdom, prudence, confidence, and hospitality. Now we come to the re-encounter of father and son.

European society Essay

The eighteenth century saw a revolution sweeping Western philosophy and a simultaneous upheaval and transformation in Western social life. In this period, the west, particularly the European society and state seemed cold and heartless. The dislocations of industrialization and urbanization exposed the weaknesses of the old system and stimulated a need for more innovative political institutions adaptable to the new socio-economic conditions. This desire for change was accompanied by strong nationalist sentiments. Initial Western nationalism was lauded as a liberal form of mass political engagement and allegiance to the secular power of emerging states, consistent with popular rule. Accordingly, its birth was announced with the representation, rights, and toleration of England’s constitutional monarchy and its banner the â€Å"liberty, equality and fraternity† of the French Revolution against absolutism. Many scholars estimate the birth of the American nation from 1750-1775 (see for example, Weeks, 1994). In the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, social, political, and economic turmoil and instability transformed many Western countries into the world’s most chaotic amphitheater of disruption. People who thought that their cultural and political borders were violated waged a series of insurrections and rebellions. This strong feeling and desire to fight violations of inalienable natural rights came to be known as nationalism. Nationalist feelings became a decisive power in the Romantic Era. In nationalism, the individual is â€Å"the very center, the arbiter, the sovereign of the universe† (Kedourie, 1993, p.17). The political implication of this was that self-determination constituted the supreme good. Later political philosophers building upon Kantian ideas proposed that: humanity is naturally divided into nations; each nation has its peculiar character; the source of all political power is the nation; for freedom and self-realization, people must identify with a nation; loyalty to the nation-states overrides other loyalties; and the primary condition of global freedom and harmony is the strengthening of the nation-state (Smith, 1983). In the early years of the twentieth century, the striking similarity displayed by the nationalist movements throughout Southeast Asia derived from their common inspiration in Western ideology and their largely identical economic bases – the former guiding the intellectuals who lead the movements in their respective countries; the latter supplying the driving power from the masses. However, it must be pointed out that nationalist movements in this region did not have the support of more than a very small fraction of the native peoples, who for the most part are not aware that the question of autonomy even exists, and whose major concern is simply survival (Emmerson, Mills, and Thompson, 1942). In Southeast Asia, native nationalism has been the forced growth of a transplanted Western seed. In spite of the centrifugal forces of a plural society artificially bound together solely by the profit motive, nationalism has taken root among the indigenous peoples. It has penetrated most deeply among the native peoples who are united by a common language, pride of race and glorious historical traditions (Emmerson, Mills, and Thompson, 1942). Thus, â€Å"Within each group, nationalism has proved to be a cohesive force, welding people who were until its advent hardly conscious of the existence of compatriots beyond their own village, absorbing disparate religious and regional loyalties, and nationalizing such international influences as they experienced. However, from the perspectives of Southeast Asian countries as individual units, nationalism has proved a disruptive force. It has made each racial group more self-conscious, more prone to assert itself at the expense of other groups, and either tends toward a disastrous break-up of the present mosaic by some vigilant outsider playing upon this grave weakness in the body politic and social, or leads toward the forced assimilation of the weaker minorities by the most powerfully placed group. † (Emmerson, Mills, and Thompson, 1942, p. 144) The establishment of national unity through was essential ingredient in the emergence of democracy. According to Marx (2003), nationalism is an essential prerequisite to democracy, since â€Å"it establishes the boundaries of the community to which citizenship and rights are then accorded, without which democracy is impossible† (p. 31). And the birth of nationalism was related to the political baptism of the lower classes whose empowerment helped bring democracy, with both nationalism and democracy thereby relatively and impressively inclusive (Marx, 2003). While many have witnessed nationalism and democracy going together, for the past few years, nationalism has been largely considered a disruptive force on the prospects for democratization. For one, national unity gives rise to the question of the state and its boundaries, which is believed to be more fundamental than that of regime type and that can disrupt debate about appropriate political forms. Nationalism in this sense is a disruptive force because it gives rise to issues regarding religious beliefs, language, and customs. Moreover, nationalism is largely seen as being potentially disruptive to achieving democratic outcomes since it stimulates mass mobilization which frightens authoritarian rulers, causing them to suppress activities that may stop the progress of the whole process of political change. The argument that nationalism is a disruptive force is validated by the experiences of southern Europe and Latin America. The disintegration of all of the federal Communist states along republican lines adds force to this argument; however, it is not as clear-cut as this in the post-Soviet experience. According to McFaul (2002), ten years after the collapse of communism, only Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are democracies, while the other republics are under regimes that are either facade democracies or nondemocratic. Nationalism was also seen as a disruptive force on the eve of the First World War. It played an important role in the rivalries between superpowers: Germany vs. France (revenge for 1871), Russia, vs. Austria-Hungary (expansion into Balkans), and Germany vs. Great Britain (control of seas, arms race). Nationalism was also a disruptive force regarding the emergence of unsatisfied nationalities: Poles, Irish, Serbs, Czechs, and many others In Poland, following the 1830 uprising, conservatives began to drift away from nationalism. By the 1850s, only few on the right were interested in talking about nationalism, which came to be seen as a dangerous term signifying disruption, disorder, and even revolution (Porter, 2000). Within Poland itself many nobles may have shared the hopes of the Czartoryski circle, but since they could do little to further such a cause, they retreated to apolitical lives (Porter, 2000). Not only were the conservatives uncomfortable with the politics of the patriotic activists, but they found it difficult to speak the language of national romanticism. â€Å"They might appreciate some of the poetry of Mickiewicz or Slowacki, but they soon discovered the disruptive force of the progressive historiosophies to which the concept of the nation had been so firmly linked. † (Porter, 2000, p. 31) References Emerson, R. , Mills, L. A. , and Thompson, V. (1942). Government and Nationalism in Southeast Asia. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations. Kedourie, E. (1993). Nationalism, 4th expanded ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Marx, A. W. (2003). Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press. McFaul, M. (2002). The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World. World Politics 54(1), 212-44. Porter, B. (2000). When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth Century Poland. New York: Oxford University Press. Weeks, W. E. (1994). American Nationalism, American Imperialism: An Interpretation of United States Political Economy, 1789-1861. Journal of the Early Republic, 14, 485-495.

Essential Tips for Producing Great News Features

A news feature is a kind of story that focuses on a hard news topic. It combines a feature writing style with hard news reporting. Here are a few tips to help you learn how to write a news feature story. Find a Topic Thats Doable News features typically try to shed light on problems in our society, but many people doing news features for the first time try to tackle topics that are just too large. They want to write about crime or poverty or injustice, but entire books—indeed, hundreds of books—can and have been written about subjects so broad. What you need to do is find a narrow, focused topic that can be covered reasonably well in the space of a 1,000–1,500-word news feature. If you want to write about crime, focus on one particular neighborhood or even a specific housing complex, and narrow it down to one type of crime. Poverty? Pick a particular kind, whether its homelessness or single mothers who cant feed their kids. And again, narrow your scope to your community or a neighborhood. Find Real People News features tackle important topics, but theyre still like any other kind of feature—theyre people stories. That means you have to have real people in your stories who will bring the topic to life. So if youre going to write about homeless people, youll need to interview as many as you can. If youre writing about a drug epidemic in your community, youll need to interview addicts, cops, and counselors. In other words, find people who are on the front lines of the issue youre writing about and let them tell their stories. Get Plenty of Facts and Stats News features need people, but they also need to be rooted in facts. For example, if your story claims there is a methamphetamine epidemic in your community, you need to support that with arrest statistics from police, treatment numbers from drug counselors, and so on. Likewise, if you think homelessness is on the rise, youll need numbers to back that up. Some evidence can be anecdotal; a cop saying hes seeing more homeless people on the streets is a good quote. But in the end, theres no substitute for hard data. Get the Expert View At some point, every news feature needs an experts point of view. So if youre writing about crime, dont just talk to a patrol cop—interview a criminologist. And if youre writing about a drug epidemic, interview someone whos studied the drugs involved and their spread. Experts lend news features authority and credibility. Get the Big Picture Its crucial to have a local focus for a news feature, but its also good to give a broader perspective as well. Incorporate large-scale stats that are relevant to your topic, like how the issue exists on a national level. What is the homeless crisis like across the country? Have there been similar drug epidemics in other communities? This big picture kind of reporting validates your story and shows that it is a piece of a larger puzzle. The federal government keeps track of tons of data, so look to the websites for various agencies to find the statistics you need.