Response #1
Identity is the result of development and growth of oneself. The identity of a character in an epic play can change in the course of the story and ultimately alter the story itself, just as the title character changes in Homer’s epic, The Odyssey. The protagonists in the story, the men of the house of Odysseus, have dramatic and subtle changes throughout the epic that alter the way the plot moves. Odysseus’s attitude in the beginning of the epic displays that of a civilization with no sense of respect for the gods or honor for their beliefs. Odysseus’s son Telemachus starts the journey as a young man who must step into his father’s sandals and take control and protect his house, something he struggles with at the beginning displaying the birth of new society ideals and how they compare to those that preceded them. Lastly, Odysseus’s dramatic change to a man who can hold his tongue and be the true hero of his own story, showing the real meaning of a civilization of a great men. Homer’s depiction of the men in his epic shows how the society has changed and has the ability to do so.

Odysseus’s way of being in the beginning is that of underserving men who expect things to belong to them and show no respect to the gods or those who have helped them, furthering the anger in the gods and destroying the world they live in a land of no true heroes. This is the world in which Homer is to be believed to have lived in, a world in which he did not respect. Telemachus grows to be a warrior, something he shares with