Women's Roles In The Odyssey

      Circe and Calypso, while very tricky and sly, are still very strong feminine characters.  Circe takes Odysseus' crew and turns them into swine; when Odysseus is able to resist her spell, due to the Moly he had been given by Hermes, she is dismayed and takes him as her lover. She is mysterious and seductive and is strong even up against Odysseus.  Calypso is a sea nymph who keeps Odysseus captive for nine years, hoping to make him her husband.  She is a strong-willed temptress whose sultry ways are able to reel in even the most determined man.

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

Circe's is described by one of Odysseus's men as follow: “Friends, a woman, a goddess perhaps, is singing sweetly within, walking to and fro in front of a great tapestry, and the whole place echoes. Let’s call out to her, now” (Homer 198).Circe’s proves right off the bat that she fits the temptress archetype because the men forget about their quest to go home because of looking at her for just a second. A temptress is usually described as

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.

Another temptress role was Circe, whom Odysseus and his men encountered after leaving Calypso. Circe turns Odysseus's men into swine after drugging them, and seduces Odysseus by playing the submissive and obedient role.

Women were portrayed as evil,seductive and manipulative, maybe even a distraction because Odysseus ran into them and that caused him to return even more late to his family. Odysseus had first slept with Circe, to retrieve his men back from being pigs. What she

Even though all the stories in this unit had a male as the main character, that doesn’t mean females went unnoticed. In fact, they were crucial to the plots of the stories, and some of the things that happened wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t around. For better, or worse, for the main protagonists. One of the female characters in this unit is Circe, who plays a unique role in Part 2 of “The Odyssey”.

Circe- Circe is a deceitful goddess that turns those that end up on her island into pigs. She eventually captured Odysseus’ crew but, with the help of Hermes, the messenger god Odysseus is able to overcome her. Hermes gives Odysseus a magical plant called moly that, when eaten, will make him immune to her spell. When Odysseus confronts Circe, he convinces her to turn his crew back into their human forms. Odysseus and Circe then fall in love and live together on the island for a year. Her character remains static through much of the

Throughout The Odyssey, a well-known Greek epic poem written by Homer, the main character Odysseus interacts with many women that help progress his journey back to Ithaca. Women are characterized as housekeepers and peaceful, being submissive to their men despite their power or status. Between the women Odysseus interacts with, Penelope has the most power due to her transparent actions as a courageous, independent woman. Firstly, Homer encounters Circe, a beautiful enchantress and goddess who subdues his men. The epic introduces the audience and Odysseus crew to her via Polites reassuring, “‘Dear friends, no need for stealth: here’s a young weaver sing a pretty song to set the air atingle on these lawns and paven courts…’”

She becomes a paradoxical mystery because on one hand, she represents lustful sensuality but then also the refinements of civilization. Segal writes about how “Circe’s magic in her encounter with Odysseus (10.314-44) serves to underline the mysterious power of sex which she embodies” (Segal 426). This characterizes her as a goddess who walks a fine line between the human and the bestial, between man and nature. Like the conversation in Histories, assured of his personal safety, Homer’s Odysseus sleeps with Circe and frees his companions after in a way that “the Homeric lure of Circean sexuality” here becomes almost an item in a formal contract, one body for another (Segal

In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer contains the overall mission by the protagonist, Odysseus, while trying to sail back home after battling at Troy. Throughout his mission, Odysseus meets women who both affect his life positively and negatively. Women in The Odyssey either play one of two roles, the unfavorable person with consequences or a strong women who holds on her own. Odysseus’ first encounter, Circe when him and his men land on her island, she turns the men into pigs, and persuades Odysseus to stay with her. In the story Odysseus says, “Circe tossed them acorns, mast, and cornel berries-- fodder for hogs…”

Women’s Role For many years, Homer gave women the roles of seducers, monsters, gods, and even victims. He portrays them as malignant and strong-headed. All of them are all equal in their own way. In The Odyssey, Homer justifies portraying women as manipulative by showing them as strong-headed. Circe, a goddess enchantress, seduces Odysseus’ men to drink her potion.

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,

Where women in the Odyssey treated all that fair? Throughout the book there have been many occurrences of women. I believe that the women in the Odyssey were seen as objects rather than people. Some examples of this are Helen of Troy and Penelope, Odysseus's wife.

Circe, a powerful sorceress, shows her strength by being in control. Whenever Circe turns Odysseus’s men into pigs she shows her strength by overpowering them. Odysseus’s men underestimate Circe for the powerful sorceress she is because she is a woman. Because they do so, they are turned into pigs.