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Building Tension In Homer's The Odyssey

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In the epic, The Odyssey by Homer translated by Robert Fitzgerald create the specific effect of building tension, establishing the setting, create conflict on book IX by using the techniques of dialogue, imagery, and diction. In chapter 9, it talks about how Odysseus tell the story to all Phaeacians and he talks about how he was sailing and he landed on the lotus-eaters island. The people of the island feeds him the lotus and Odysseus and his man forgets everything and gets caught by the kyklops and he keeps them captive. The only way to get off the island is Polyphemos because he's the only one that can move the big boulder away from the only way out. So Odysseus comes up with a plan to give a drink to Polyphemos and he stabs Polyphemos in the eyes and …show more content…

A quote in book IX was, “Nohbdy’s my meat, then, after i eat his friends. Others come first. There's a noble gift now.”. (400) This quote creates an effect which is building up the tension between Polyphemos and Odysseus. This is building up tension because he saying that Odysseus is his food then the whole sentence is saying that he would eat Odysseus last as a gift. Polyphemos is creating conflict between him and odysseus which means that Odysseus has to create a plan to get off the island.

Another technique was imagery, which is to use figurative language to represent objects or even actions in a way that appeals to our physical senses. A quote in book IX was, “So with our brand we bored that great eye socket while blood ran out around the red hot bar.” (420) This quote establishes the setting because it shows how odysseus is handling the situation by attacking Polyphemos when he's drunk so he can escape. This shows imagery because the reader can visualize the seen which is expressed through the author's descriptive word

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