The Limited Role Of Women In Homer's The Odyssey

Throughout the epic poem “Odyssey” we see many great characters who all bring a different feel to the story. “Odyssey” is a story that has a male main character and many male side characters, but it also has several female characters found in it. Each one of these females have an important role within the story and it would not be the same without them. Athena, Penelope, and Eucycleia are a few examples of female characters.

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.

Women in The Odyssey desire power and equal opportunities, but strict gender roles do not allow them to achieve equality. An example of this is Queen Penelope. Her husband, King Odysseus, has been gone for 20 years and missing for 10 of those, and she's completely helpless against the suitors who have overrun her house. The intention of these suitors being is to marry Penelope (against her will) and take over the thrown. In book two Telemachus calls a meeting of all these men to share his exasperation and anger over the fact that all the suitors have been taking his cattle, wrecking his home, and longing after his mother against her will. Nobody spoke up, except for Antinous. He was a sly man who had discovered Penelope’s secret, and decided

Although “The Odyssey” by the Greek poet Homer is very much an epic tale of a man’s heroic quest, women play an incredibly large role. Homer’s epic tale, “The Odyssey” revolves around Ulysses’ quest to return back to his wife, Penelope, so that he may be reunited with her and assume control over his palace, which has been overrun by suitors. Ulysses’ son, Telemachus attempts to regain authority in the presence of the many suitors but finds this difficult and embarks upon his own journey under the guidance of Athena and other deities. The main thrust of Homer’s “The Odyssey” centers upon the adventures of Homer as he endeavors to get back home, which he finally does. He overtakes the suitors through his cunning and the tale ends happily.

For this informative report I will attempt to point out the roles women and how they are viewed in ancient Greece. I will then show how these views are present in Homer’s "The Odyssey." How are women, goddess or mortal, conveyed in "The Odyssey?"

Traditionally, women are depicted as weak and vulnerable. However, in the epic, the Odyssey by Homer, women are depicted as loyal, persevering, supportive. Homer depicts Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, as loyal by showing her pine for Odysseus even though he is rumored by many to be dead. Next is Calypso, a woman who wants Odysseus to be her husband so bad, that she keeps him hostage as a form of her perseverance. Lastly, Homer shows Athena, the goddess of wisdom, as a supportive character to Telemachus in more than one way. Homer wrote the Odyssey, against normal stereotypes of women, and made women seem loyal, persevering, and supportive.

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

The Odyssey includes many women characters, differing from strong, powerful women to women that don’t have a meaningful role in the story. Some women in the story include Penelope, Athena, and Leucothea. These women play a role in Odysseus’s journey and life.

As Odysseus summons the spirits among the Underworld, he encounters a variety of women whom which have relations with certain gods or heroes. The reasons behind these various women and their lineage to Odysseus reveals the curiosity of his stance and importance (Od. 11.267). Furthermore, since the women Odysseus summons have relationships with either gods or heroes, it signifies Odysseus’ mindset toward his homecoming. Furthermore, throughout the epic, Odysseus’ own quest is to return home to his own family and through the women he encounters from the Underworld help influence his understanding and contributes guidance toward his long-awaited return.

On the surface, The Odyssey is the story of a weary warrior who has long endured perilous trials and yearns to get home. It is a timeless classic about one man’s struggle to persevere and reclaim the home that was taken from him while he was away at war. However, The Odyssey is much more than a simple message about getting home. Odysseus’s outer struggles with his trials mirror the inner battle he is fighting within himself: one to regain the masculinity which has been abused and taken from him from various women throughout the tale. The three women illustrated in the book who either defile and or define Odysseus’s sexuality are Circe, Calypso and Penelope. Masculinity and femininity are intertwined throughout The Odyssey, and one needs the other in order to prosper.

3. Role of Women in the Odyssey The women in the Odyssey are very different from one another; some are loyal, some are not; some are strong, some are weak, in mind and body. The women vary, hindering and helping Odysseus in his journey. There is one major female character who is extremely strong and wise and who stays uncharacteristically loyal throughout the story: Athena.

Women are portrayed as seductresses. Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of Circe, lured in by the sound of her voice. Homer describes her as "Low she sang/ in her beguiling voice,

Women played a huge role in The Odyssey. Odysseus wouldn’t have been able to do almost everything he did without women. Women were sometimes real women, or goddesses. They help him get home back to Ithaca, transform him so no one knows him, and some are even crazy and try to keep him. Overall, women play a huge part in the Odyssey.

            There were far more restrictions placed on the women of the ancient world than on the men.  To many, this may appear to be an obvious fact.  However, the comparison of women to men in the Odyssey does not show such a discrepancy.  The women created by Homer had certain characteristics that set them apart from ordinary women.  Penelope was a woman who did not give in to the demands of her surroundings.  She suffered throughout the twenty year absence of her husband, Odysseus.  She maintained her dignity and her chastity through her refusal of the hoards of suitors that flocked to her home. Penelope represents the ideal woman for balancing her refusals of marriage and the preservation of her respect.  When ready to address her suitors, Eurymachus, a suitor himself, speaks out from the crowd in praise of Penelope.  He states, "Ah, daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope . . . You surpass all women in build and beauty, refined and steady mind" (18. 276,280).  The acts of Penelope would not have been allowed of an ordinary woman of those times.  Her loyalty to Odysseus was unflagging and quite contrary to Clytaemestra's loyalty, another character in the Odyssey, though she is never mentioned by name.