Women's Role Of Women In The Iliad

Agency is a term describing one's ability to reason and to act freely. Back in the time of the Trojan War, women were not considered to possess full agency as Aristotle once illustrated in his Politics “The deliberative part of the soul is entirely missing from a slave, a woman has it but it lacks authority.” In Book 3 of the Iliad, Homer illustrated the enticement of Aphrodite luring Helen to the bed of Paris and Helen’s corresponding resistance. From Helen’s dispute with Aphrodite, we can see that women in the Homeric world attempted to achieve agency through defying their fate of being materialized as mere sex partners, but eventually all the attempts were conquered under the mental compulsion from gods.

By societal standards today, women are characterized as strong and independent. Women have gained the right to vote and now largely populate workplaces everywhere. Certainly, Homer’s Odyssey cannot be compared to modern times as a feminist piece, it is usually portrayed as the exact opposite. In fact, Homer shows that women are responsible for many problems that arise in the epic. Yet, despite this there are still many powerful female characters. Additionally, most female characters play large roles. This differs greatly from Homeric times, in which women would not have as much power as female characters in the epic possess. Ordinarily, Greek women were represented as docile and obedient creatures who would not leave the trappings of the household. Although women in the Odyssey do show tendencies to conform in these expected, submissive ways, female characters exercise a large amount of power over the events of the Odyssey. This resulted in a collection of strong female characters, a stark contrast with the time. Throughout the Odyssey female characters are characterized as strong through many different ways. Female characters assume positions of power, use sexuality and/or wits to stay ahead, and offer crucial advice and help to Odysseus and Telemakhos.

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?"

Typically ancient Greek women are thought to be very helpful, and powerful. Especially those who were queens or in major political positions of power. Contrary to this belief, a large sum of women in The Odyssey are more harmful than helpful. Women play a negative role in The Odyssey, constantly creating obstacles for Odysseus. They are portrayed as evil, manipulative, and even monstrous.

“A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view” (Ibsen). This saying also applied to the times of the Odyssey, an epic constructed by the blind, eight century B.C.E. poet, Homer. As one of the few representatives of ancient Greek social order, the blind, Homer witnessed women as substandard to men, regardless of their actions; many of them existed as seductresses, prostitutes, or slaves. He engraved into his poem women’s roles; the roles of women, as mothers, wives, seductresses, and goddesses are exemplified in this epic, when shown in comparison to the men of that era.

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way. she adjusted her sails.” A quote by Elizabeth Edwards that shows the way that woman change when certain events happen in life. The Odyssey is an epic poem that is written by Homer. This epic is a story about Odysseus, king of Ithaca, journey back home after winning the Trojan War. His journey back home comes with many obstacles that makes the journey take ten years to get back home to Ithaca. Female roles in the odyssey are very important because they show how men and woman were both different 3,000 years ago. They also make the journey back home more difficult for Odysseus. In this epic poem women were either portrayed as seductresses, mothers or monsters.

The women in Homer’s Iliad and the women in Genesis both exhibit the accepted societal values in a woman through their duties as wives, which typically consists of obedience and the ability to sustain their husband’s lineage. Rebekah and Andromache both assume their roles as wives, but sometimes act in ways outside of what was considered normal in their society. Though both Rebekah and Andromache maintain the classic role of a wife, they occasionally contradict the expectations of how a woman should behave by making decisions traditionally made by men. Through revolutionary behaviors demonstrated by both women, they grant themselves more authority and power in decision-making, which in turn affects the fate of each woman’s family. Both

Women play an enormous role in the Iliad and even though they do not actually fight in the war their presents in the lives of the protagonist change the war completely. Their roles, though small from line to line, had huge impacts on the war overall. From Hector’s love for Andromache who fought for the Trojans nonmatter what, and Achilles not fighting for the Achaeans because of Brises, to Paris capture of Helen that started the whole war Homer really emphases these women’s role and influence in the different male protagonist and the Trojan war

In literature, are women used as important roles or only used as love interests and for their beauty? This question has been around for a long time and there is still no clear answer. One literary example is the women characters in Homer’s The Odyssey- the ancient Greek epic of Odysseus and his journey home to Ithaka. When on his journey, Odysseus meets many women who are ultimately used as alluring characters to distract Odysseus on his journey home. Throughout the epic, many of the women characters Odysseus comes across have not been conveyed as intelligent or heroic, but as attractive and irresistible. With the majority of women being described in the same way - as beautiful and seductive- Homer

The Iliad and Odyssey present different ideals of women, and the goddesses, who are presented as ideal women, differ between the two epics. The difference in roles is largely dependent on power, and relations to men, as well as sexual desirability and activity.

The role of women in ancient Greek life was insignificant compared to that of Greek men. A woman's job was to take care of the children and to cook and clean unless she had servants or slaves that would do it for her. Yet, in Greek mythology, women were often written as major characters. Well-known Greek plays contain many well-written, complex, female characters. Female individuals in Greek mythology were often seen as very powerful and fierce and were depicted by “her wits, her beauty, or her bad deeds.”

One of the inherent problems that is prominently on display in both the Iliad and in Ceres and Proserpina is the role of women in Greek and Roman mythology. "To read the history of Ancient Greece as it has been written for centuries is to enter a thoroughly male world" (Blundell, 226). When it comes to a poem like the Iliad, this is even more particularly true as the reader enters a universe of war, where women are very much on the peripheral and the men are the dominant characters directly implied in the bulk of the action (Blundell, 47). "The Iliad is a poem about the Trojan war, and about the heroes who fight in it; and, in the words of the Trojan Prince Hector, 'war is men's business' (6.492). Women make very few appearances in the work, and as far as the action goes, they are insignificant" (Blundell, 48). However, as Blundell points out, women are scattered throughout the text as characters crucial only to the plot of the Iliad. They help keep things moving, often helping to initiate the action that the men become the central players to. The most prime example of this is the abduction of Helen of Troy, the catalyst for the entire war. One could argue that the opposite is true in the story of Ceres and Proserpina, that in this particularly myth the women are central characters and that the entire tale is a ballad to the sacredness of the mother-daughter bond. In fact, comparing a mother figure such as Andromache as she appears

The role of women in the Iliad is a subject that remains open to debate. Lefkowitz, in her article The Heroic Women of Greek Epic, argues that without the role of women in the Iliad the story would not have occurred (504 ).

The Iliad of Homer is the poetic tale of the Trojan War during its final year of battle. While this epic poem recounts a conflict between men, women are included as tools men used to assert their power. Mortal women were subordinate to men, used either as sexual property or as domestic support. Male soldiers enjoyed the spoils of war; most had taken Trojan females as servants, concubines, or wives. Captured mortal women were considered property and given no control over their fate.

Homer’s Iliad is undoubtedly focused on its male characters: Achilles, primarily, but also Hector and Agamemnon. Nevertheless, it seems that the most crucial characters in the epic are female. Homer uses the characters of Thetis, Andromache, and Helen as a basis for comparison to the male characters. Homer wants his audience to see and understand the folly of his male characters in choosing war over peace, aggression over kindness, and honor over family. While the behavior of these characters clearly speaks for itself, the contrasting attitudes and behaviors of the female characters proffer an alternative; in comparison, the reader can hardly fail to concur with Homer’s message that war, aggression,