Read Mary Antin's biography from "The promised land" What information does the biography include?

What is the authors purpose in writing this paragraph

In a speech to high school students, a business owner makes the following statement short response

Twenty years gone, and i am back again on my own island. as for my change of skin, that is a charm athena, hope of soldiers, uses as she will; she has the knack to make me seem a beggar man sometimes and sometimes young, with finer clothes about me. it is no hard thing for the gods of heaven to glorify a man or bring him low. —the odyssey, homer based on what odysseus says in the passage, what has he learned? humans can become like gods. humans are under the gods’ control. humans can change from beggars to soldiers.