I didn’t expect my day to end like this. I am Antinous, leader of the Suitors. Today I broke into Penelope’s house. I see a strange man standing there. He looked very old. Telemachus told me to greet him as well as offer him food. I greeted him in such an unmannerly way. He started speaking with me, I got slowly annoyed. I spotted a stool, directly aiming at his right shoulder hitting him perfectly! I nearly broke it. “DAMN YOU!” He shouted. Penelope happened to be in the room, standing in the corner, seeing everything. “DO YOU TREAT GOD LIKE THAT?!” She bawled at me. My green eyes are filled with anger. “My apologies my queen.” I said. “You show no excellence here in Ithaca.” She cried out.
Penelope is a great example of how Greek women should act in early society. Penelope was loyal to her husband, she was clever, and she was a good mother to her son Telemachos. Penelope honored her husband and didn’t go against him even though he was gone for over 20 years. She also had to face over 100 suitors while Odysseus was gone. Penelope showed her cleverness when she told the town she would remarry when she finished weaving the rug. Every night Penelope would undo the work she weaved so she could buy time for her husband. She was very faithful to her husband and believed him that he would return to her. These traits that Penelope show are how other Greek women should act in society. The roles women played in society was that they
Antinous clearly has a right to be mad. Penelope, queen of Ithaca, has promised to marry him or one of his fellow suitors for almost 4 years. However, it was quite obvious from his speech to Telemachus and the assembly that he simply wants to bully Penelope and her family until she chooses to marry one of the many suitors staying at their house. His rebuttal to Telemachus’ accusations only highlighted his ignorance. He described a story in which Penelope promised to marry one of the suitors after she had finished weaving a large loom. In order to draw the time out, she undid her progress every night. Any man should have figured out her trick in a month, but Antinous and his friends were tricked by her for 3 years. If a man is to become the
The Odyssey, written by Homer, tells the story of Odysseus after the Trojan War. It not only includes an insight on the adventures and return of Odysseus, but it also includes the stories of Telemakhos and Penelope. Telemakhos is the courageous son of Odysseus who goes on a quest in search for information about his father’s whereabouts. Penelope is an extremely clever woman who could match Odysseus in his wit. Penelope is able manipulate the suitors that have come to pursue her in Odysseus’s absence. Though Penelope often spends many nights weeping over the absence of her husband, it seems as if she never loses faith in her husband, and she truly believes that he will return to her and punish the suitors that have taken over their
Despite this high opinion of Penelope, before he left, Odysseus and Kalypso " . . . retired, this pair [He and Kalypso], to the inner cave/to revel and rest softly, side by side."(Homer V:235-238) This was not the only time Odysseus "retired", with another woman. On the island of Kirke "[he] entered Kirke's flawless bed of love"(Homer X:390). Despite these few instances, Odysseus remained faithful to Penelope in their twenty years apart. He never loved either Kalypso or Kirke as he did Penelope, and thusly chose not to stay with either of the two. Although the principle might get lost in the tale, Penelope played the part of the goal for Odysseus to obtain, or re-obtain by the end of the Odyssey.
In a world where today, we can hardly hope for fidelity and allegiance in the one we choose to give our love to, it might be difficult to understand the plight of Penelope and Telemachus. Even
The season of old Greece appears like its own story in a different universe, one in no way like our own. Capable divine beings and goddesses, overcome warriors, magical creatures, and the abuse of ladies lead the plot. But that ladies have been ignored in our reality for quite a long time. The irrelevance of ladies was a piece of Greek life that isn't lofty or ethereal. In the epic lyric The Odyssey by Homer, Penelope forms into her own particular character amid a period where ladies are prized as belonging more than individuals. Homer makes Penelope into her own particular individual and not only an expansion to her significant other by his long nonattendance and the inconveniences she should look without anyone else through troublesome circumstances. Homer gives her characteristics of unwaveringness, quality, and clever to have the capacity to get by without a spouse when all others figure she should simply take another. Penelope ends up plainly like a character not at all like numerous ladies in Greek circumstances, for example, Agamemnon's significant other, however like Circe and Athena. She is transformed into a lady of energy by Homer.
Penelope: In the opening chapters of The Odyssey Penelope is angry, frustrated, and helpless. She misses her husband, Odysseus. She worries about the safety of her son, Telemakhos. Her house is overrun with arrogant men who are making love to her servants and eating her out of house and home, all the while saying that they are courting her. She doesn't want to marry any of them, and their rude behavior can hardly be called proper courtship. She has wealth and position; she has beauty and intelligence; most of all she has loyalty to her husband. But against this corrupt horde who gather in her courtyard shooting dice, throwing the discus, killing her husband's cattle for their feasts, and drinking his wine, she is powerless.
While traditional readers of Homer’s, The Odyssey, view Odysseus as a hero, they often reduce Penelope to Odysseus’s helpless wife, but Penelope is more than just a damsel-in-distress. Penelope proves to be Odysseus’s heroic equal, as through her resilient, witty and strategic actions she ensures Odysseus fighting advantages over the suitors.
Antigone’s first tragic flaw in her story is when she received the news about their brother’s death and talked to her sister Ismene about it. Antigone began her talk with, “Ismene, I am going to bury him. Will you come?” In which Ismene replied, “Bury him! You have just said the new law forbids it.”
Unlike most Greek tragedies, Antigone is not essentially about the opposing powers of good and evil. Instead, the play demonstrates the conflict between one’s duty towards their family and their country and social expectations. “Antigone presents a conflict between family loyalty and loyalty to the state, between demands of the state and the will of the individual” (MacKay, 166). The king
Odysseus's wife, Penelope plays a crucial role in Homer's ‘The Odyssey’, with not only providing the motivation for Odysseus's return to Ithaca, but she is also the center of the plot involving the suitors and the fate of Telemakos and Ithaca itself. Therefore the objective of this essay is to analyze the importance of Penelope’s role in ‘The Odyssey’.
The poem begins with a perfect example of the hospitality laws being abused. Book I opens with the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, calling the assembly because his house has been plagued with guests who will not leave. They have broken the laws of Hospitality by remaining within the house and eating the food of Odysseus while trying to woo Odysseus's wife, Penelope. The suitors claim the right to stay through hospitality laws, stating that they remain solely because Penelope will not choose a husband amongst them, "it is not the Achaean suitors who are to blame: it is your own mother with her unexampled trickery. Three years have passed, -and a fourth will soon be gone - since she began to baffle her suitor's hearts. She gives hope to all, sh promises every man in turn...." The
Brad Moore, a famous athlete once said, “Pride would be a lot easier to swallow if it didn’t taste so bad.” In Sophocles’ well known Greek tragedy, Antigone, the main character undergoes immense character development. Antigone transforms from being stubborn and underestimated to courageous and open-minded. In reality, it is Antigone’s insular persistence that leads to her ultimate decline in the play as well as others around her. After the death of her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, Creon becomes the new ruler of Thebes. With this, he grants Eteocles an honorable funeral service for his brave fighting. Claiming that Polynices was a traitor, he shows complete refusal to grant Polynices a respectable and worthy service. Clearly
"The soul has no secret that the behavior does not reveal,” said Lao Tzu. The essence of
Homer's Odyssey is a story of the homecoming of Odysseus after the Trojan War. Odysseus left his wife, Penelope, and their young son, Telemachos, almost twenty years before the telling of this story to fight in the Trojan War. His absence places Penelope in a rather precarious position. Faced with many different circumstances, both good and bad, Penelope is on her own to decide the path she wishes to take. Depending on her decisions, the situations could either be filled with wonderful opportunities or perilous dangers. The strong character of Penelope is revealed by her decisions.