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Chimpanzees Are Social Creatures, Yet They Travel In Small

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Chimpanzees are social creatures, yet they travel in small groups. When one group attacks another, the males heavily defend their territory in order to assert dominance in their society. Male dominance has existed in literature all throughout history, especially in the Odyssey by Homer. This piece of literature contains a journey that lasts for twenty years, a man who yearns to return to his wife, and many mythical beings he must overcome. Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, both face incredible situations within their twenty years of separation. In Homer’s Odyssey, both Odysseus and Penelope seek power through intelligence; however, Odysseus’s aggressive nature allows him to retain his power, conveying the message that men have superiority…show more content…
Penelope spends most of her time in the Odyssey longing for her beloved husband to return to Ithaca. While Odysseus is in battle at Troy and on his way back home, loneliness and sorrow fills Penelope’s heart. Even as her heartache continues, suitors raid her home of food, livestock, and successively asks for her hand in marriage because of the widespread belief that Odysseus died. Although she feels uncomfortable with the suitors, it is custom in Ancient Greece to demonstrate hospitality to visitors. Penelope spends many years with over a hundred suitors but finally after 20 years of waiting, she hears from her nurse news of Odysseus’s homecoming. Because of her doubts, Penelope decides to test Odysseus: “Come Eurycleia, make the bed outside the room which he built himself; out the fine bedstead outside, and lay out the rugs and blankets and fleeces” (256). Knowing that the bed was made by Odysseus himself out of a tree, Penelope tests him to see if it really is Odysseus. Although her clever test angers Odysseus at first, they happily reunite and Odysseus takes charge over his kingdom once again.
Odysseus and Penelope share the characteristic of striking intelligence. Both use their brilliance to the fullest advantage in their most dire situations. In Odysseus’s case, he uses his cleverness when he and his crew meet Polyphemus, a cyclops. After they get trapped in
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