List at least six of the women, mortal and divine in the Odyssey and write a brief description of each one. Then explain in specific detail what role each one plays in the Odyssey. Finally, write a paragraph or two summing up Homer's ideas about the roles of women in the Odyssey--what they are like and how they are treated.
Homer’s Odyssey brings a new perspective on the female status in the aftermath of the fall of Troy. The women’s roles in this work are of significant importance as three main themes emerge from the epic, the goddess, the faithful wife and loving mother, and the seductress.
From the very beginning of the narrative, Athena is portrayed as the strong protector of Odysseus, using her goddess power to sway both the gods and the mortals in favor of her protégé. Flattered by the resemblance of Odysseus’ traits of character to her own, she loves him not in a motherly or romantic way, but as a higher force that has the power to change his destiny and bring him happiness, especially during his trials and tribulations, as she herself admits that “it is for Ulysses that my/ heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt/ island, far away, poor man, from all his friends.” (Homer, The Odyssey, Book 1) Her love for brave Odysseus is immense, and it extends over his immediate family also, as we can see in Books 1-4. Eager to avenge her protégé and punish his wrongdoers, she takes the form of friends and relatives of the hero to protect, encourage and guide Telemachus, his son, in maintaining his faith in his father’s return and promoting his name as King of Ithaca. Therefore, in Book 1, she is introduced to Telemachus in the shape of an old friend of his grandfather's, Laertes. “Disguised as/ a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians,” she managed “to put heart into Ulysses’ son Telemachus” against his mother’s greedy suitors and for defending his father’s honor, giving him hope that he is alive and that the parasites depleting his father’s earthly possessions will receive their punishment.
Alongside Telemachus in grieving Odysseus is his loving mother, Penelope. Her heart full of sorrow, she has faithfully awaited her beloved husband to return from war for twenty years. Her continuous pain and pitiful crying make her seem weak, and her obeying her son’s orders to retire to her quarters and leave the important business to the man of the house suggest a submissive character and an inferior status in the familial hierarchy, “Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your/ daily duties,” “for speech is man’s matter, and mine above all others- for it is I/ who am master here.” However, she uses her feminine wiles to keep her suitors under control. Her love for and loyalty to her missing husband have kept her from remarrying during the years of his absence, and to keep the suitors’ pressure to a minimum, she cleverly devises a scheme to trick them. She promises them that when she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes, she would marry one of them, but she wittingly unweaves it at night, leading them on with her secret. As a mother, she is very caring and concerned about her son’s wellbeing when she learns that her suitors are plotting to murder him, but finds comfort when protective Athena consoles her by sending “a phantom in the likeness of a woman friend to reassure Penelope that Telemachus will be all right.” (Thompson, p 65)
Another female character contributing to the theme of the good family woman is Arete, Queen of the Phaeacians, and mother of Princess Nausicaa. Arete shows mercy and kindness to the stranger begging at her feet and honors him as a guest. Not only is she a great hostess – she joins her husband, King Alcinous, in welcoming and honoring Ulysses – but she is very generous, sending the hero on his journey on a ship filled with magnificent riches.
Nausicaa, Arete’s daughter, is modest and fearful during her encounter with the naked Odysseus on the beach where she was washing laundry. However, she treats him well, she feeds him and clothes him, and sends him to the Queen with good advice on how to make himself pleasant to her and her people.
In the string of seductresses that Ulysses deals with, Calypso is the one who gets to hold on to him the longest time. The nymph, “daughter of the magician Atlas,” traps Ulysses and keeps him prisoner for seven years. Seducing him with her beauty, she “will not let him go” and instead makes him her lover and plans on marrying him and giving him eternal life. However, her plans are ruined when Hermes informs her that she is to let Odysseus go and return to his family as it has been ordered by Zeus. Upset with this turn of events, she tries to lure Odysseus to stay against his destiny by vainly using her looks again, but the hero is determined to return home. She has to accept Zeus’ will and obey him, leaving her powerless in front of the almighty god. Eventually, she helps her captive set sail by providing materials for his raft and provisions for the road.
Wicked Circe is the next in line to seduce Odysseus and keep him close. The witch manages to turn Odysseus’ scouts into pigs after tainting their drinks with drugs, and then attempts to do the same to him. However, with help from Hermes, he resists her drugs and gets her to undo the spell she had put on his crew. Threatened by him, “she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and spoke piteously,” giving in to his request before Odysseus agrees to become her lover, “I shall certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take your solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.'/ "So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her oath then I went to bed with her." After spending a year at her house and living a lavish life, the hero and his men set sail again.
The ultimate temptation, the Sirens, also appear as an obstacle in Odysseus’ journey home. Luring sailors with their sweet, seductive songs, they try to grab and pull them into the water and kill them. Bound to the rocks in the sea, these evil female creatures cannot leave the waters they lurk in, which strips them of the ability to move beyond their ties. Their only trick to get the sailors is to seduce them with their voices and drag them underneath. However, with advice from Circe, Odysseus outsmarts them by having his men tie him tightly to the mast and stuff their ears with wax. The Sirens then become powerless when their only trick fails to work.
In Book 11, during his visit to Hades, Odysseus speaks with the ghost of Agamemnon, who mentions another evil seductress, his own wife, Clytemnestra, saying, “there is nothing in this world so cruel and so shameless as a woman when she has fallen into such guilt as hers was. Fancy murdering her own husband!” Having been killed by her after she had made his cousin her lover during Agamemnon’s absence, the King is pained and disgusted by her deed, which causes him to lose faith in all women, “her abominable crime has brought disgrace on herself and all women who shall come after- even on the good ones.” As a friend, he advises Odysseus to be watchful even of his own wife, although he praises her, saying that “Penelope is a very admirable woman, and has an excellent nature.”
In my opinion, it is the female characters that sustain and spice up our hero’s journey as the tone changes in comparison with the portrayal of the women in The Iliad. This offers the audience a new point of view on the status of the women of the time, that of being submissive and obedient in a man’s world, but making great use of their feminine charms to reach their goals. Their intricate ways of seduction, their promiscuity or faithful natures are indubitably a source of great entertainment for the reader as the story unfolds.
Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey
Thompson, Diane. The Trojan War. “Homer’s Odyssey: The Long Journey Home”
No comments:
Post a Comment