Women In Homer's Odyssey

      Penelope and Helen are the real human women who can steal men's hearts with their own feminine ways and they never let their man go.  Helen stole the heart of Paris and later married Menelaus-the love that Paris had for Helen began the long Trojan War.  Even with her shaded past, Helen is able to live her life as a proper adjusted middle-class matron.  Penelope and Odysseus were only together for a few years before he was sent off to war and, while he was gone for over twenty years, his love for her lasted.  Penelope is the symbol of marital fidelity, of trust, honor  and devotion.

This time spent on Circe's island was a test of whether he could resist lust from a goddess, and he fails. At first it appears as though the only reason Odysseus sleeps with Circe is to regain his companions, but she easily persuades them to stay. What makes it worse is the fact that Odysseus is not even the first one ready to go. His men are the ones who urge him to leave: "What ails you now? It is time to think about our own country" (Book X, line 472). At a glance, it appears that Odysseus is merely succumbing to Circe's schemes for reasons related to their health and well being, if we read between the lines, we soon begin to realize that Odysseus is weak in the voracious hands of lust. Odysseus arrives on Calypso's island in her cave. At first, it seems like Odysseus doesn't seem much to mind her taking care of him, but over time it is plainly evident that he is unhappy with her. When Hermes arrives on Calypso's island to give her the message from Zeus to release Odysseus, he is bawling on the beach-- a daylong activity for him. Calypso is holding him with her by force; she has no companions to help him back to Ithaca, nor has she a ship to send him in. Athena pleads with Zeus to give Odysseus good fortune,

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

While Penelope is pursued vigorously by some of Ithaca’s most powerful men, this lust is shown to give Penelope some leverage of her own. The Suitors themselves say “, (Telemachus) it’s your own dear mother, the matchless queen of cunning. Look here. For three years now, getting on to four, she’s played it fast and loose with all our hearts, building each man’s hopes(96).” While Penelope remained heartbroken, awaiting Odysseus’ return, she was able to tug on the hearts of her suitors to postpone her forced marriage for years. Circe doesn’t just seduce men for her own protection, she seduces men to

My father’s brother, Uncle Tyndareus, father of Helen …. helped him to do it.” (Atwood 35). During Penelope’s life she thought that Odysseus had won her fair and square, but after she died she learned the truth that he had cheated with the help of her uncle. While Odysseus was lost at sea, many rumors of his “heroic tasks” were brought to Penelope by other ships. Though at the time she believed them, in the Underworld she learned the truth:

In Homer's epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus is an epic hero with an epic wife, Penelope. Penelope is also the Queen of Ithaca, a vital role indeed. Penelope's love and devotion towards Odysseus is proven when she waits nineteen years for her husband to return from the wine dark sea, rather than losing faith and marrying another man. Penelope's character is strong and solid, and her personality remains consistent throughout Homer's Odyssey.

Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, can be compared in a various ways to the other characters in Homer’s poem The Odyssey. In many ways, Penelope symbolizes the ideal woman, in that she follows to the values and ideals of her society. These ideals include faithfulness, devotion, and determination; pride your home and family, and warmth to strangers. Their dedication to each other, their power to stay together through times of happiness and times of sad, and their will to survive the test of time.

For example, just like Penelope, Circes proves to be ingenious. For Instance, when Odysseus and his men come to her home Aeaea, “she [prepares] a meal of cheese and barley and amber honey mixed with Praminian wine, adding her own vile pinch, to make them lose desire or thought of [their]dear father land” (Pathways 491-492). She later uses a similar form of hospitality when she realizes that Odysseus is protected from her magic. She has her maids prepare him a warm bath and delicious meal. Her hospitality is also partially due to the fact that she views men, like Odysseus, as her superiors. For example, after Odysseus proves his immunity, she dotes on him, giving him multiple compliments and praises. All of the Characteristics of Circes show that women were supposed to view men as superior during this time, but also but clever and smart in their own way. Through these examples, it is clear, that Circes, although an enchantress, shows some of the characteristics that would be expected in a typical Greek woman such as her hospitality and her recognition of the superiority of

Women's roles in The Odyssey are limited, they are decreased to wives, seducers or monsters. In Homer's epic, Circe is depicted as a beautiful goddess enchantress. She manipulates Odysseus's men and turns them into animals, specifically swine. Circe attempts to seduce Odysseus and maneuver her magic on him, but he does not submit to her sorcery. Instead, she recognizes his capability and becomes very fond of Odysseus.

Penelope portrays herself as helpless, vulnerable and willing to give into their love to tempt them into taking on a competition for her own benefit. Her actions are similar to those of an enchanting sorceress. In no way does she seem willing to get rid of them, rather it seems she wants to captivate them. Penelope does not remain true to her morals in this quote she says because she is losing hope of her husband's return and losing sight of her true ambitions and

When she still has not completed her work after years of weaving, the suitors become skeptical. One suitor explains, “So every day she wove on the great loom- but every night by torchlight she unwove it; and so for three years she deceived the Achaeans”(Homer, Ⅱ, 726). In exposing Penelope’s devious actions to everyone in the room, the suitor suggests that women in Greek society cannot be trusted. While Penelope could have been viewed as clever, she is considered deceitful. Yet, Odysseus is deemed a hero for tricking the cyclops into drinking wine so his men may escape. Although their actions were similar, Odysseus is praised while Penelope is condemned. Another unscrupulous woman in the Odyssey is Circe. Circe is a witch with the ability to turn men into pigs. When Odysseus and his men come to her island, she appears beautiful and offers them a grand feast. However, their peaceful meal does not last long. Homer describes, “Scare they had drunk when she flew after them with her long stick and shut them in a pigsty- bodies, voices, heads, and bristles, all swinish now, though minds unchanged”(Homer, Ⅹ, 758). Circe’s trickery illustrates her dishonesty. After welcoming the men onto her

To them, she is like Pandora, with lies brimming in her breast because she goes against what they desire, what the general public desires on Ithaca, which is for her to pick a suitor so that he may absorb all of Odysseus’ power and money. Every one of the suitors desires a chance to be that man. Antinous, upon Telemachus request that the suitors leave, blames Penelope as the reason they have not left as she, “knows more tricks than any woman alive” (Odyssey 2.96), thus insinuating that Penelope is a cause of mischief and the real reason for trouble in Odysseus’ household. Following

In ancient Greek society, women were thought of as punishment for Prometheus’ theft of fire from the gods. “Prometheus, a demigod and thcreator of first men, steals fire from heaven and brings it to earth. Furious at being deceived, Zeus devises the supreme trick in the form of a ‘gift’ to men . . . Pandora” the first woman (Holland). This myth set the standard for women being treated unequally in ancient Greek society.

Even Odysseus seems to always go back to her “…why was he still—and possibly always—thinking about Helen?” (Pg. 64, The Penelopiad). Helen weaves her way in and out of the text as she does with people’s lives: effortlessly and without worry for her implications. She is a constant issue for Penelope, making her feelings for Helen range from admiration to loathing. Penelope simultaneously wants to be Helen and could not imagine ever being her, creating a tension that looms over the main plot of the novel.

Unknown to the suitors, Odysseus is still alive. The beautiful nymph Calypso, possessed by love for him, has imprisoned him on her island, Ogygia. He longs to return to his wife and son, but he has no ship or crew to help him escape. While the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus debate Odysseus’s future, Athena, Odysseus’s strongest supporter among the gods, resolves to help Telemachus. Disguised as a friend of the prince’s grandfather, Laertes, she convinces the prince to call a meeting of the assembly at which he reproaches the suitors. Athena also prepares him for a great journey to Pylos and Sparta, where the kings Nestor and Menelaus, Odysseus’s companions during the war, inform him that Odysseus is alive and trapped on Calypso’s island. Telemachus makes plans to return home, while, back in Ithaca, Antinous and the other suitors prepare an ambush to kill him when he reaches port.