The Island of Helios

Notes for THE ODYSSEY: THE ISLAND OF HELIOS

The reading log should include:
At least three vocabulary words + their definitions
Plus a brief summary of the plot
Plus any thing pertaining to theme; to character; to figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, idioms, etc.
The following books should be included in this week's read log:
The Lotus Eaters
Calypso
The Cyclops
Circe
The Land of the Dead
Circe
The Sirens
Scylla
Charybdis
The Isle of Helios

When we finish THE ODYSSEY, the rest of the reading logs over Odysseus's return to Ithaca will be due.

Page 684:
The Isle of Helios:
The Isle of Helios is still in flashback. Odysseus is in the court of Alcinous telling the king and his people what happened to him and his men while they were on the island of the Sun God.
Vocabulary:
Gales: very rough gusts of wind; not quite hurricane level but very intense
Insidious: treacherous; more dangerous than apparent

You remember that Teireisias told Odysseus not to eat the cows and sheep of the god Helios. Odysseus warns his men not to eat these beeves and kines or they will be destroyed by the angry Helios for (once again) breaking the bonds that tie the host and guests.
The sheep and cattle are magical because they are never born and they never die.
Odysseus and his men land on the island due to bad weather. The men have barley (a type of grain) on board which they eat until eventually, after about a month, they run out. The men then try to fish and hunt but with no luck

But notice that the men are starving. Despite their best efforts at hunting and fishing, they catch nothing and are suffering the slow and agonizing death of starvation. The gods do nothing to help them. The gods could, if they wanted, send them rain and help them with their fishing and hunting, but they don’t; the gods ignore the starving men's pleas.

Odysseus is faring no better than his men. Mindful of Circes' warning, he stays away from Helios' sheep and cows. Odysseus is for the most part - when his arrogance doesn't get the best of him - a dutiful Greek who honors the gods and their laws, and although he is starving too along with the men, he goes off, away from his men to pray to these intractable, unfair gods. But starvation is exhausting, and while praying for deliverance from this suffering, he falls asleep. While he is sleeping the men mutiny; they ignore his orders. Their need for food overcomes their will and they kill Helios' sheep and the cows.
The theme of this particular story is pretty complex. (The theme is stated in a form of a sentence: it must have a subject, and should state what happens as a consequence of a character flaw or an action.)
The theme is a moral or the point of the story.
According to Greek philosophy, destiny is determined by the gods and cannot be changed.
Those who disobey the gods will be destroyed or punished.
Those who obey the gods will be spared.
Those who are tested by the gods and who are loyal to the gods will prevail.
The laws are pretty explicit and because the men disobeyed the gods' laws - even though the rules are unfair and the men are starving - the men must be punished. They must die.
After killing the cows and sheep and eating them, the men board the ship to sail home. But Helios, who sees all and hears all on earth, complains to Zeus about Odysseus's men. The men must forfeit their lives for killing the animals.
So Zeus sends lightning to strike the boat, setting it on fire and drowning all the men, except for Odysseus, whose life is spared as Circe and Teireisias foretold. Odysseus swims to the island of Calypso, which takes us back to the beginning of the story where we first meet Odysseus sitting on Calypso’s beach crying from homesickness.