Penelope's Early Recognition of Odysseus

Penelope was left behind when Odysseus left for the trojan war, but he didn’t come back after that. Penelope had to take care of their son, their estate, and their servants for 20 years. On top of all of that she had suitors demanding her attention. In all of this she stayed strong and independent, and despite the pressure of the suitors she stayed loyal to Odysseus, even when she didn’t even know if he was alive or not. Penelope’s character is also very clever and sly. She told the suitors that she would remarry after she finishes her weaving project, but each night she undoes everything she did that day. When the suitors find out about it they demand she choose someone to remarry. Penelope uses her intelligence and slyness again as she tells them whoever wins an archery contest using Odysseus bow, which only he could use, she would marry. Penelope is also very kind, which we see when she interacts with the servants and her son. Penelope is a very well portrayed character and she is needed in the story to be someone Odysseus could always be someone to come back

Hermia, originally the Apple of all Athens’ eye, put on an impossible pedestal by both Lysander and Demetrius, seems to trade social standings with the outcast Helena. It seems that Hermia doesn’t fully appreciate the quality of her state. She complains that her father will not allow her to merry her true love Lysander, and pawns her off to the inadequate Demetrius. Never can she accept the flattery of Demetrius’ unrequited love which her best friend would do anything to sincerely receive. Instead she revels in wonderment: “The more I [Hermia] hate, the more he [Demetrius] follows me” (I.i.198). Her unhappiness is far heightened when her two followers are given the love potion, turning them against her and beckoning to Helena. The cruel swap of fates lets the two female characters feel as though in the others’ shoes. It’s Hermia’s karma for being ungrateful at the attention bestowed upon her all these years that leads her to this harsh lesson.

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

After Odysseus “dies”, Penelope is forced to remarry because women were supposed to be wives and listen to the head of the household. She takes action to delay her forced remarriage by weaving a loom, but was caught in the act and did not succeed in canceling the wedding: “They rush the marriage on, and I spin out my wiles./ […] So by day I'd weave at my great and growing web-/ by night, by the light of torches set beside me,/ I would unravel all I'd done. Three whole years/ I deceived them blind, seduced them with this scheme./ Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on/ and the months waned and the long days came round once more,/ the suitors caught me in the act and denounced me harshly./ So I finished it off. Against my will. They forced me./ And now I cannot escape a marriage, nor can I contrive/ a deft way out” (19.152-177). Penelope was mourning her husband and did not want to be married to anyone but him, and drastically fooled her suitors for almost four years before the maids relayed that she had been unweaving her loom by night. Here, Penelope is not given the choice of remarriage, she is forced to remarry because of her beauty, status, and lack of a man to take care of her, which was normal in these times but is completely outrageous nowadays. Although Penelope was Telemachus’ mother, it made no difference in how she was treated by him and it was made clear his status of superiority over the household: “So, mother,/ go back to your quarters. Tend to your own tasks,/ the distaff and the loom, and keep the women,/ working hard as well. As for giving orders,/ men will see to that, but I most of all:/ I hold the reins of power in this house”

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’.

In Homer's epic The Odyssey, Odysseus returns to the island of Ithaka disguised as a beggar. He reveals his real identity to his son, Telemakhos, as well as a few others who he would need to help kill the suitors. However, Odysseus does not reveal himself to his wife, Penelope. She recognizes the beggar as her long lost husband and chooses not to unveil his true identity. Penelope does this because she realized that her husband would be in danger, in his current surroundings, if she was to reveal who he really was. Therefore she acts as if she does not know the beggar is Odysseus. However, it is portrayed subtly in the book that she does indeed know that the beggar is her husband.

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

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.

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

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

Penelope has a very complex and interesting character. For example her determination to wait and to mislead the suitors for so long shows that she had great intelligence and perseverance. Penelope's wit is acknowledged in this quote from Antinous "For all the Achean beauties of former times, none had at her command such wits as she."(Page 20, Book 2). Penelope's wit is also shown in her scheme to mislead the suitors by saying that they must wait for her to weave a shroud for Odysseus's father Laertes. She told them

Penelope acts as the damsel in distress. She is unable to keep the suitors away from her house because she is a woman, and that makes her vulnerable. She also provides Odysseus with a reason to return home because she is his wife. She has no choice but to pick one of the suitors, and soon. Penelope says she is “wasted with longing for Odysseus, while here they press for marriage”(1004). She still loves her husband, which gives him hope that he will be accepted once he makes his return, and gives him a reason to continue trying. She also cannot turn the suitors away, preventing her from being able to protect herself. This once again proves that, as the damsel in distress, Penelope needs Odysseus for protection.

            Penelope did not have any idea whether her husband was alive for most of the twenty-years he was gone.  She had promised Odysseus that she would not marry until their son, Telemakos, reached the age of adulthood.  Just

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

Penelope, a loyal, faithful and patient wife is faced with suitors pressuring her daily to remarry. She uses her wit and cleverness to hold them off. She assures the suitors that she will remarry as soon as she finishes the burial shroud for her husband, which she has no intention of finishing until her husband returns. Upon realizing that her husband had returned she makes an announcement to marry the winner of the archery contest.