Odysseus Disguise In O Brother Where Art Thou

Around the 1200 B.C., Odysseus was sailing the Mediterranean Sea for the purpose of reaching home. In his long narrative poem, The Odyssey, Homer conveys how Odysseus desperately wishes to go home to Ithaca. However, he faces brutal treatment and obstacles from several different antagonists, and more obstacles appear when he reaches home. Odysseus came across many external conflicts, which he dealt with intelligence, determination, and loyalty.

Odysseus must now face the other suitors in order to win Penelope. He must rely on physical strength to get past this task then to face Penelope and convince her it is really Odysseus. After defeating the other suitors Odysseus was cleaned up and made to

Unlike Odysseus Penelope is confined by the gender roles of her time and cannot use physical strength against the suitors or even direct verbal rejection, instead Penelope resorts to her emotional resilience and wit in order to challenge the suitors. She wrongly reassures the suitors that once she finishes weaving a gift for Odysseus’s father, she will choose someone to marry her, “’Young men, my suitors, let me finish my weaving, before I marry’…every day she wove on the great loom but every night by torchlight she unwove it.” (II. 103-104, 112-113) Penelope’s actions are strategic and well calculated. Her main goal, like Odysseus, is to successfully overcome her situation. She understands that she may not be able to physically fight the suitors but she can trick them until Telemachus or Odysseus are able to. By crafting a lie that delays the suitors from marrying her immediately, Penelope restrains the suitors from seizing Ithaca, her household, and posing a threat to Telemachus or Odysseus. Her lie gives Odysseus a crucial advantage in the physical fight against the suitors as he comes back to a city and household where Penelope

The Odyssey does not clearly state whether or not Penelope sees through Odysseus’ beggar disguise, but there are subtle hints that imply that she does recognize Odysseus. The book clearly states that Telemachus, Eurycleia, and Argus knew the beggar’s true identity. If these individuals recognized Odysseus, why would his cunning wife, Penelope not see through his disguise? Many times while Odysseus is in disguise as a beggar, he comes into contact with Penelope, during these interactions it appears that Penelope is encouraging Odysseus to take down the suitors. Although the specific point Penelope recognized Odysseus is not clear, the book implies that she did at one point, realize the beggar was Odysseus.

Furthermore, Penelope is an important character as her identity “functions as a stable and unchanging reference point for the adventures of Odysseus” (Katz, 6). As Katz explains, Odysseus’ travels are interwoven with his lust for home and his desire to be with his wife again. As well, her identity becomes a parallel to Odysseus’ identity through her use of polutropus (tricks and turns). She proves, by the end of the poem, that she is the perfect match for Odysseus as both of them share the same skills with rhetoric and language to get what they want. Their like-mindedness is evident during the recognition scene between the two. Penelope tests Odysseus’ knowledge of their marital bed - before blindly trusting his claim of identity - by asking the slaves to move their immovable bed: “[putting] her husband to the proof-but Odysseus/ blazed in fury, lashed out at his loyal wife” (Homer, 23.203-204). In his angry response to Penelope’s test, Odysseus proves his identity to his wife as he explains why the bed cannot move. When she hears their familiar story of the creation of their bed, - which only the two and a slave know about - Penelope submits to her long-lost husband in an emotional reunion. Her caution, before accepting Odysseus’ claim, shows the wary protectionism stance that she had to adopt while her husband was gone so she could protect the kingdom from the suitors.

Later, Eurycleia washes Odysseus’s feet and notices his scar. She realizes it’s Odysseus right away, but Odysseus pleads her to keep himself a secret. Then, Penelope decides to marry the man who could shoot an arrow through holes of 12 axes.

Penelope may not have as exciting of a life as some of the other characters in Homer’s The Odyssey, but she makes up for it by being very clever, which makes her a good match for her husband, Odysseus. Penelope plays a very important role in Odysseus’s journey home, in fact, she is the main reason for his return to Ithaca. When the suitors begin invading her house and asking, then demanding, her hand in marriage, Penelope knows she must handle them herself. Being a woman in ancient Greece, she does not have the ability to force the suitors to leave her house, and neither does Telemachus. This means that Penelope must continue to allow them to abuse the hospitality that was expected at that time, and all she can do is try to outsmart the suitors until her husband comes home. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Penelope is a good match for Odysseus because she is clever, and she shows that cleverness when she stalls the suitors by weaving the burial shroud, when she devises the contest with

Odysseus tells Athena, whom he believes is a shepherd, a false account, of how he came to Ithaca, primarily since he needs to keep his identity a secret, familiarize himself with the situation on Ithaca and formulate a plan to execute the suitors. He perceives that he has arrived in a mist-shrouded and unknown land. And thus secondarily, he needs to present a feasible reason for being alone and stranded with copious amounts of treasure for safety reasons as well as to allay suspicion in relation to his identity. Athena affects how he tells his lie because he can see and listen to her. To manipulate her more effectively, Odysseus exploits these factors to produce a story specifically tailored to the information Athena provides.

The moment that Penelope sees Odysseus disguised as a beggar, she was able to notice that the beggar was her husband. Homer tries to trick the readers in Book 19 by Penelope asking about her

She does not know it but Pallas Athena intervenes and cleanses Penelope’s face and skin, so that when the suitors’ saw her, their “knees grew weak” and “were spellbound, in love” (18.229-230). Because the suitors are infatuated by Penelope’s beauty, they are even more determined to closely watch her, which just makes it riskier if Odysseus was to reveal himself to Penelope. The pain and suffering that Odysseus has of not being able to tell his wife who he is what causes him to be stronger. It is with this strength, that the endurance produces, that gives Odysseus the encouragement he needs to kill the

Penelope is also shown to have been very sought after, by the band of suitors that inhabit Odysseus's palace in Ithaca while he is away. All the while Odysseus is away; suitors are constantly trying to force Penelope to choose one of them as her new husband.

O’ Brother Where Art Thou and The Odyssey have similar plots that follow each other, but little things change to make them different. What the husbands struggle

Odysseus has the ability to quickly contrive and implement deceitful plans that successfully allow him to achieve his heroic intentions of protecting Ithaca. This theme is a frequent occurrence in the book, and is highlighted with his struggle for power against the Suitors. In “The Suitors” Odysseus approaches his adversaries executing the plan that he and his son, Telemachus constructed. Odysseus, disguised as an old beggar successfully deceives Antinous and the other Suitors, providing an excellent distraction while Telemachus locks away the weapons. Odysseus asks Antinous for some bread, which results in Antinous attacking him. Penelope, intrigued by the rowdiness of The Suitors, decides to interrogate the old beggar. Odysseus’ trickery

Penelope, just as Odysseus, portrayed the great human trait of patience. She did what it took to fend off the suitors with hope that her husband would come back for her. Penelope didn’t give up hope because she felt in heart that Odysseus would come

Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still not returned to his native land Ithaca. A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful—though weakening—wife Penelope, and going through his stock for food. With permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemachus to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan to ambush him upon return.