CLA 210 COMPREHENSIVE EXAM UPDATED QUESTIONS
AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
✔✔Elektra complex - ✔✔woman wants to overthrow mother and marry father
✔✔Odysseus Nostoi - ✔✔-story beings "en media res"
-Penelope waits for Odysseus to return home
✔✔Cicones and Lotus Eaters (Odysseus Nostoi) - ✔✔Odysseus and men raided island
of Cicones, but while they stopped another group of Cicones attacked and killed several
men
Lotus eaters: Men escaped and came to land where people consume drug that makes
them forget home
Bad xenia: arrive and are attacked
✔✔Polyphemus (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔men make themselves at home, Odysseus
looks for inhabitants and finds giant cave and decides to wait to receive hospitality.
Polyphemus returns and puts a giant rock in front of the door and grabs one of the men
and eats them (bad xenia).
Odysseus tricks Poly by telling him his name is 'no one' and then blinding Polyphemus.
Next day men strap themselves to bellies of sheep and leave cave unnoticed.
Poly chases them to their ship and O reveals himself.
Poly calls upon the name of his father and curses O
✔✔Aeolus (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔wind-king; offers O a bag of unfavorable wings.
Men get close enough to Ithaca and O falls asleep (bad things always happen when O
falls asleep).
Men untie the bag, thinking it holds riches and are blown back to Aelous.
Aelous says the gods must hate them and sends them away
✔✔Laestrygonians (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔giant cannibal men; O's is the only ship to
escape
✔✔Circe (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔turns men to swine;
Hermes gives Odysseus a potion that will save him; O stays on island for year with his
non-pig men
, ✔✔Tiresias (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔goes to underworld to hear from Tiresias;
warns them about Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and avoid Cattle of Helius
✔✔Sirens (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔heads and breast of women, bodies of birds; O, on
advice of Circe; is tied to the mast to listen to their music
✔✔Scylla and Charybdis (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔Char = whirlpool and Scylla = six
headed
monster;
men avoid them by stopping and starving on Helius' cattle island;
Z destroys their ship and O is almost drowned by Charybdis
✔✔Calypso (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔O washes up on Ogygia and lives there for 7 years;
only sleeps with her during night (when it doesn't count) and longs for Penelope during
day.
Hermes comes to get him
✔✔How does odysseus handle getting home? - ✔✔O leaves on raft and Poseidon ****s
him over again.
Washes ashore and found by Nausicaa and is taken before king and treated with good
xenia and sent back to Ithaca .
hosted by swineherd and reveals himself to Telemachus, who explains situation.
O proves himself during contest during which he shoots his unshootable bow.
Penelope tests him by asking Euryclea (the nurse who recognizes his scar) to bring out
their bed (an impossible feat) .
Upon his return, his nurse recognizes him by a scar on his thigh- he kills all of
Penelope's suitors, and proves himself to her that it really is him after being away from
home for 20 years
✔✔Roman Myth traits - ✔✔No creation myth;
very little divine myth;
most myths were borrowed from Greeks in 3rd-2nd century;
mostly about imperial/cultural propaganda
AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
✔✔Elektra complex - ✔✔woman wants to overthrow mother and marry father
✔✔Odysseus Nostoi - ✔✔-story beings "en media res"
-Penelope waits for Odysseus to return home
✔✔Cicones and Lotus Eaters (Odysseus Nostoi) - ✔✔Odysseus and men raided island
of Cicones, but while they stopped another group of Cicones attacked and killed several
men
Lotus eaters: Men escaped and came to land where people consume drug that makes
them forget home
Bad xenia: arrive and are attacked
✔✔Polyphemus (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔men make themselves at home, Odysseus
looks for inhabitants and finds giant cave and decides to wait to receive hospitality.
Polyphemus returns and puts a giant rock in front of the door and grabs one of the men
and eats them (bad xenia).
Odysseus tricks Poly by telling him his name is 'no one' and then blinding Polyphemus.
Next day men strap themselves to bellies of sheep and leave cave unnoticed.
Poly chases them to their ship and O reveals himself.
Poly calls upon the name of his father and curses O
✔✔Aeolus (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔wind-king; offers O a bag of unfavorable wings.
Men get close enough to Ithaca and O falls asleep (bad things always happen when O
falls asleep).
Men untie the bag, thinking it holds riches and are blown back to Aelous.
Aelous says the gods must hate them and sends them away
✔✔Laestrygonians (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔giant cannibal men; O's is the only ship to
escape
✔✔Circe (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔turns men to swine;
Hermes gives Odysseus a potion that will save him; O stays on island for year with his
non-pig men
, ✔✔Tiresias (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔goes to underworld to hear from Tiresias;
warns them about Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and avoid Cattle of Helius
✔✔Sirens (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔heads and breast of women, bodies of birds; O, on
advice of Circe; is tied to the mast to listen to their music
✔✔Scylla and Charybdis (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔Char = whirlpool and Scylla = six
headed
monster;
men avoid them by stopping and starving on Helius' cattle island;
Z destroys their ship and O is almost drowned by Charybdis
✔✔Calypso (odysseus nostoi) - ✔✔O washes up on Ogygia and lives there for 7 years;
only sleeps with her during night (when it doesn't count) and longs for Penelope during
day.
Hermes comes to get him
✔✔How does odysseus handle getting home? - ✔✔O leaves on raft and Poseidon ****s
him over again.
Washes ashore and found by Nausicaa and is taken before king and treated with good
xenia and sent back to Ithaca .
hosted by swineherd and reveals himself to Telemachus, who explains situation.
O proves himself during contest during which he shoots his unshootable bow.
Penelope tests him by asking Euryclea (the nurse who recognizes his scar) to bring out
their bed (an impossible feat) .
Upon his return, his nurse recognizes him by a scar on his thigh- he kills all of
Penelope's suitors, and proves himself to her that it really is him after being away from
home for 20 years
✔✔Roman Myth traits - ✔✔No creation myth;
very little divine myth;
most myths were borrowed from Greeks in 3rd-2nd century;
mostly about imperial/cultural propaganda
