The Homeless Bird Analysis

The Homeless Bird and The Odyssey

The Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan, is an award winning book which reflects the story of a young girl who became a widow in a young age and how she suffers in life, but in the end achieves what she wanted for herself. Meanwhile, the Odyssey is an epic book containing chapters of poem by Homer, it conveys the story of Odysseus who had to suffer greatly before his long-wished homecoming, mainly due to the wrath of the Gods after the Trojan War. In both novels, the characters suffers from their ill-fated life, but had to strive to live their lives to the fullest in an attempt to achieve their dreams and their great desires. The two stories project the idea of before achieving something, a person should suffer

In the Homeless Bird, Koly was conned into a marriage to a boy who was sickly and in return became a widow after her ‘husband’ died. “While we were alone for a minute, Maa said, ‘The boy is much younger than they told us, and he is sickly” (Whelan, Chapter 1). With the lies and deceit of Koly’s in-laws, she suffered the consequences of being marked as a widow and experiences the pain it causes. By the theme of lies and deceit, the readers can actually visualize how much pain she should go through in following her life story. Meanwhile in the Odyssey, the family of Odysseus was driven by the fact that he will not ever return, In the other hand Odysseus was totally hopeful to have a homecoming in his hometown. “Eurymachus, there is no hope of my father’s homecoming. I believe no messages anymore, even should there be one, nor pay attention to any prophecy, those times my mother calls some diviner into the house and asks him questions” (Homer, 1, 413-416). Even Though Telemachus has recently had a conversation that his father is alive, he chose to keep the truth to himself in order to protect himself and his mother from the wrath of the suitors if they would know the truth. By giving others lies and deceit, Telemachus saved only not his life but also those he had cared for. Furthermore, the theme of Lies and Deceit within the context also helped in achieving the things that the characters had wanted for the future. Overall, the Theme of Lies and Deceit, was portrayed in both the Odyssey and the Homeless Bird, by analyzing this theme, readers can be notified as to what type of character and what each of them are having in their individual life. Furthermore, the theme alson portrays the moral lessons of lying, eventhough lying is a bad thing, when lying to protect