Stereotypes Of Women In Homer's The Odyssey

One of the female characters in “Odyssey” is Athena. Athena is the daughter of Zeus and the goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. In the “Odyssey” she is portrayed as a helper and guardian of Odysseus and his family. Athena assists Odysseus on his journey home, and Telemachus (Odysseus’s son) on his journey as well. She is also a master of disguise, clever, and wise. This we see

In the first section of Odyssey, mortal women are presented to us as controlled by the stereotypes and expectations of the culture of the day, and it is only within that context that we can consider the examples Homer provides of women to be admired or despised. He provides us with clear contrasts, between Penelope and Eurycleia on the one hand, and Helen and Clytemnaestra on the other.

      Homer's "Odyssey" depicts women as strong subjects-they are real substantive characters. Women in this poem are tough, strong-willed and are treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve.  Homer characterizes the women in his poem as the real counterparts of men-they have real feelings, real plans and are able to accomplish them on their own.

In Homer's composition, The Odyssey, the roles women play are very significant. The best examples of the true nature of women occur when Odysseus encounters Circe and Calypso. These two characters illustrate the thoughts and feelings of how women how a woman feels and how they think. As the quote states, Circe and Calypso illustrate how women really can be crafty, intelligent, sneaky, disloyal, and cruel. In contrast to battles with men, Cyclops, or animals, sexual battles with women are sometimes much more difficult to win.

Women play an influential role in The Odyssey. Women appear throughout the story, as goddesses, wives, princesses, or servants. The nymph Calypso enslaves Odysseus for many years. Odysseus desires to reach home and his wife Penelope. It is the goddess Athena who sets the action of The Odyssey rolling; she also guides and orchestrates everything to Odysseus’ good. Women in The Odyssey are divided into two classes: seductresses and helpmeets. By doing so, Homer demonstrates that women have the power to either hinder of help men. Only one woman is able to successfully combine elements of both classes: Penelope. She serves as a role model of virtue and craftiness. All the other women are compared to and contrasted with Penelope.

Homer’s Odyssey is an epic tale set in the world of ancient Greece - a world dominated by men. Admirable men such as Odysseus, the story’s protagonist, are strong, cunning, and wise; they have control over their lives and the people within them. In The Odyssey, the quintessential man is characterized by his authority, including control of the women who surround him. As is suggested throughout the novel, the patriarchal world would fall into disarray without the force of intrinsic male authority. Odysseus’s struggles with his wife, his son’s search for manhood, and the wiles of cunning women like Clytemnestra and Calypso highlight the disordering powers of women. These disordering powers justify, to the men within this world, the necessity

The #MeToo movement has brought the most recent revelations of misogyny in modern society. Sexism has been present throughout history, and the Greek society in Homer’s The Odyssey is no exception. It tells of the hero Odysseus’ journey back to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemakhos, on Ithaka, including his delays by the nymph, Kalypso. Throughout the epic, Homer portrays that society’s perceptions of female inferiority lead to harsher expectations of and stereotypes for women, as shown by the powerlessness, sexual double standard, and seductive stereotypes of women.

     Many people regard Homer’s epics as war stories—stories about men; those people often overlook the important roles that women play in the Odyssey. While there are not many female characters in the Odyssey, the few that there are, play pivotal roles in the story and one can gain a lot of insight by analyzing how those women are portrayed. Homer portrays the females in contradictory ways: the characters of Athena and Eurykleia are given strong, admirable roles while Melantho, the Sirens and Circe are depicted in a much more negative way. Penelope—the central female character—is given both negative and positive attributes.

Does Homer exhibit gender bias in the Odyssey?  Is the nature of woman as depicted in the Odyssey in any way revealing? Upon examining the text of the Odyssey for differential treatment on men and women, it becomes necessary to distinguish between three possible conclusions.  One, differences in treatment reflect the underlying Homeric thesis that  women are "different but equal in nature,"  Two, different treatment  of men and women in the text reflect a thesis that women are "different and unequal in nature" -- arguments about misogyny fall in here but a host of other interpretive possibilities are possible too. Three, the different treatment reflects simple ignorance. How much do we attribute what we discover to male authorship -- or

Another example of how the rules and expectations for women did not apply to men in The Odyssey is when Eumaeus, the loyal swine herdsman of Odysseus, recounts how he came to Ithaca as a captive of a slave woman, Phoinikia. This woman was seduced by a roaming seafarer who, '…made such love to her as women in their frailty are confused by, even the best of them.'; The god Artemis later kills Phoinikia for her 'treachery.';

Women are important to the plot and overall theme of the Odyssey. In fact, without many of the women there would not be a complex plot to this epic poem. In the narrative and in Greek society women played a variety of roles, as mothers, herons, and many other strong roles yet, they were treated as less significant, and were made to be loyal and submissive to men. The women were required to wait on and sulk for love, as Penelope did for 20 years. In Greek society, the women had very little authority but the little control that they did have was sort of a sexual power, which at times they could use to outwit the men. Obvious examples of this sexual power would be Circe and Calypso. Calypso and Circe however, are not the

In Homer’s Odyssey women are responsible for many of the problems that Odysseus faced during his journey back to Ithaca. This essay will analyse how far women were responsible and also compare it to far other things caused problems for Odysseus.

The islands of Circe and Calypso in Homer’s Odyssey are places where Odysseus’ most challenging problems occur. In contrast to battles with men, Cyclops, or animals, sexual battles with women are sometimes much more difficult to win. These two female characters are especially enticing to Odysseus because they are goddesses. Though it is evident that Odysseus longs to return to Penelope in Ithaka, it sometimes appears that he has lost vision of what life was like with a wife, a son, and with thousands of people who regard him as King. Although his experiences on the islands of these goddesses were similar in that he was retained from Ithaka for the longest periods of his adventure, these goddesses and the

In Homer’s epic story, The Odyssey, Homer portrays women as insidious creatures. For example, Circe the witch with a beautiful voice, is found by Odysseus and his men and she is only seen as a beautiful mistress, though she has more power than she seems. Odysseus and his men stumble upon Circe’s home and hear her singing. One of Odysseus men says, “‘Dear friends, no need for stealth: here’s a young weaver singing a pretty song…’” (556-560). They think they have nothing to worry about, but when they come inside, Circe takes action, “Scarce had they drunk before when she flew after them with her long stick and shut them in a pigsty-bodies, voices, and bristles all swinish now…”(570-573). Homer displays women as insidious through Circe when Odysseus and his men waltz into Circe’s home thinking they are safe because she is “singing a pretty

Sheryl Sandberg once said, “We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women's voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.” The Odyssey incorporates an epic adventure with family drama. The book is staged in ancient Greece 20 years after the trojan war. The Odyssey is narrated by Homer, the first person to write down the adventures of Odysseus. The epic poem focuses on Odysseus’s journey home and what is happening to his family in Ithaca. Overall The Odyssey is a journey about gender stereotypes and how some women defy those gender stereotypes. Homer uses many traits of characters to address this everyday life topic. He specifically Athena’s wisdom, Circe’s strength, and Penelope’s cleverness to convey the theme though gender stereotypes often elevate men, women have prized traits as well.