Philoctetes
In the era that I grew up and went to high school, it was all about fashion. If you didn’t have the latest designer fashion name brands or the newest Jordans, you were considered an outsider. There was this young man at my high school who other students would consider an outsider. His name is Steve, and he was in my French class. Steve didn’t wear the latest shoes or keep up with up to date fashion trends. The clothes that he will wear didn’t appear new, and they were not any designer brand. Because of these reasons, Steve often got picked on. We ended up being partners for a classroom activity, which is when I got to know him. He was brilliant and willing to help me in any way he could. He was even offering his tutoring services to me to help me academically. After that, we became quite good acquaintances. Steve shared with me that he wanted to run for student council. That if he was the one that nobody will vote for him. I was popular in high school, and I also had a job at footlocker. I was able to get discounts on the latest Air Jordan’s and exclusive appeals. I also was able to change Steve’s wardrobe so he can have the appearance to fit it. That allowed me to bring him around my friends so they can hear some of his great ideas.
Steve built a rapport with the students who have an influential reputation — gaining a support system essential for running his campaign. My friends and I help Steve during his campaign run by providing the necessary resources he needed in order to gain the attention of other students. Practicing and rehearsing his speeches helped him control his nerves and fear of speaking in front of large crowds. Steve was running for the treasury; he ended up coming in second place. At that point, steve didn’t even care about winning. He was just so happy about his second place. The amount of gratitude that he expressed made me feel good about the second place as well, and he was so grateful that we helped him and expressing his gratitude.
Steve was dehumanized by the denial of his agency and experience. He was denied of his agency because people cast him out; they didn’t even view him as capable of running for student council. The other students picked on him and made fun of him because he didn’t look and dress a certain way. He was also denied his experience because of the way he dressed that he didn’t have enough experience to be a leader. He didn’t look a certain way; therefore, his opinions on potentially bettering the school didn’t matter to other people. This relates back to Binti and when she felt like an outsider. She felt like an outsider to her fellow classmates and the other students at Oomza University. Similar to Steve, Binti dressed differently than those around her. She wore otijze in her hair with a vibrant color garment and silver bangles around her ankles. Others stared at Binti just as they stared at Steve. Binti was denied of her agency from her family not supporting her decision for Oomza University or the Meduse when she told them of her plan to get the chief stinger back. Steve was regarded as a member of almost the entire school. Many of Steve’s bullies convinced other students that Steve had a contagious disease and to stay away from him. This isolated Steve even more now that the other students viewed him as physically disgusting.
Steve became humanize similar to Philoctetes with our first encounter when he showed me respect and kindness. His willingness to help other people represented his xenia. Similarly, when Philoctetes welcomed Neoptolemus and Odysseus with open arms into his home. The ties of friendships he made through my mutual friends, including myself, helped him gain the confidence he needed to accomplish his dreams. Philoctetes speaks in Greek to Neoptolemus and Odysseus to show respect and honor in hopes of forming a relationship.
Philoctetes: Now by your father and by your mother, son, by all that you cherish at home — I solemnly supplicate you, do not leave me alone like this, helpless amid these miseries in which I live, so harsh as you see, and so numerous as I have said! Consider me a small side-task. Great is your disgust, well I know, at such a cargo. Yet bear with it all the same — to noble minds baseness is hateful, and a good deed is glorious. If you forsake this task, you will have a stain on your honor; but if you perform it, boy, you will win the prize of highest honor — if I return alive to Oeta’s soil. Come, the trouble will not last one full day. Endure it, take me and throw me where you will — in the hold, the prow, the stern, wherever I will least annoy my shipmates. Say yes, by the great god of suppliants, son; be persuaded! I supplicate you at your knees, I am an infirm wretch, and lame! Do not leave me desolate like this, far from the paths of mankind! No, bring me safely to your own home, or to Euboea, Chalcodon’s seat; and from there it will be no long journey for me to Oeta and the Trachinian heights, and fair-flowing Spercheius, so that you may show me to my beloved father, though long I have feared that he may have departed me. For often did I summon him by means of those who came here, sending imploring prayers that he would himself send a ship and get me safely home. But either he is dead, or else, as I think is likely, my messengers thought my concerns of little account and hurried on their homeward voyage. Now, however, since in you I have found one who can be both an escort and a messenger, save me and show me mercy, keeping in mind that all human destiny is full of the fear and the danger that prosperity may be followed by its opposite. He who stands clear of trouble must beware of dangers, and when a man lives at ease, then it is that he must look most closely to his livelihood, lest it secretly suffer ruin.
In the passage above, Philoctetes is begging for Neoptolemu's mercy to rescue him. Philoctetes is able to connect with allowing Neoptolemus to internalize his pain, anger, sadness that anybody can feel at any given moment. He expresses to Neoptolemus that no matter how good or bad a person appears to be, unfortunate events will occur. That nobody is untouchable, this could easily be you. He also explained to Neoptolemus that his honor would be depreciated if he did not help him. This play relates to Steve because he not yet an adult and solely relies on his parents. It’s not his fault that his parents are unable to afford designer. Anything could happen for someone to wind up in the same position as Steve. Someone’s father could lose their job, making income tight, forcing cutbacks on spending. To include designer and new shoes every month. However, Steve became popular because he had the clothes to fill-in, even after he continued to make friends who see him for who he is.
Neoptolemus: Then what are your orders?
Odysseus: You must cheat the mind of Philoctetes by means of a story told as you converse with him. When he asks you who and from where you are, say that you are the son of Achilles — it is not in that detail that you will cheat him. But tell him you are sailing homeward, and have left the fleet of the Achaean warriors, after coming to hate them with unbounded hatred. Give him this reason: when, with no other hope of taking Ilium, they had summoned you by their prayers to come from home, they judged you not worthy of the arms of Achilles, not worthy to receive them — even though you had come and were claiming them by right — but instead handed them over to Odysseus. Say what you will of me — even the vilest of vile insults. You will not harm me at all by that. But if you fail to do as I say, you will inflict pain on all the Argives, for if that man’s bow is not seized, you can never sack the realm of Dardanus. And learn why your intercourse with him may be free from mistrust and danger, while mine cannot. You have sailed to Troy under no oath to any man, nor under any constraint. Neither did you have any part in the earlier expedition. I, however, can deny none of these things. Accordingly, if he perceives me while he is still master of his bow, I am dead, and you, as my comrade, will share my doom. No, the thing for which we must devise a ruse is just this: how you may steal his invincible weapons. Well I know, my son, that by nature you are not apt to utter or contrive such treachery. Yet knowing that victory is a sweet prize to gain, steel yourself to do it. Our honesty shall be displayed another time. Now, however, give yourself to me for one brief, shameless day, and then for the rest of time may you be called the most righteous of all humankind.
In the passage above Odysseus is trying to convince Neoptolemus to trick Philoctetes. Explaining to him that a lying tongue will always win and that will always be how you win. So that Philoctetes will feel like a mentee to Odysseus and activating submissiveness by shaming him. This is similar to Steve’s bullies who spread the rumor that he had a contagious disease. The bullies manipulated other students either by fear or idolization to treat Steve in a malicious way.
The leadership I used was that I saw potential in Steve and I took him under my wing. I became Steve’s social mentor and he became my academic mentor.
