How does tolstoy set up gerasim to be a foil to praskovya fedorovna in these two excerpts from the death of ivan ilyich?

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.

What is the central idea in this advice from branch rickey to jackie robinson?  

[v]ast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging . . which satirical element is most dominant in the passage above?