How Does Homer Bring His Stories to Life?
In his Odyssey, Homer employs a wide range of techniques to keep the audience absorbed by the adventures of its hero Odysseus.
In order to bring his stories to life Homer uses amazing description of scenes and images throughout the book. Homer often uses very detailed gruesome imagery when describing horrific events in the story. For example in book 9 home describes the Cyclops' eye being stabbed “ we handles our pole with its red hot point and twisted it in his eye till the blood boiled up round the burning wood. The scorching heat singed his lids and brow all round, while his eyeball blazed and the very roots crackled in the flame.” By using very powerful figurative writing Homer manages to engage his reader and play with his emotions. Homer also uses many metaphors and similes in order to bring his stories to life, “the Cyclops’ eye hissed round the olive stake in the same way that an axe or adze hisses when a smith plunges it into cold water in order to quench and strengthen the iron.” The similes and metaphors help the reader to imagine what Homer is describing and that makes the story all the more exciting. Also it helps the reader relate to what is being described as, for example, they might not know what sound would come out of an eye being stabbed with a hot wooden stick whereas they would be quite familiar with the sound of a hot axe being plunged into water, and by comparing one to the other it becomes easier for the reader to imagine this actually happening and so the story begins to come to life for them.
