Lulu Oliveri
Ms. Fernandez
English CP - Pink class
19 May 2023
Penelope is the Ideal Greek Woman and Wife
Penelope is the exemplary Greek woman and wife, embodying the core values of her culture. In the epic poem The Odyssey written by Homer, Penelope waits at home while her husband Odysseus is away fighting the Trojan war. In the twenty years he is away fighting and making his journey home, more than one hundred suitors are living in her home and attempting to coerce her to marry them. She allows the suitors into her home because of the Greek value of Xenia and throughout the poem she keeps this up. She comes up with many brilliant plans in order to evade the suitors and not go against her values. Penelope is the ideal Greek woman and wife, who represents the values of her culture.This can be seen through her loyalty, wiles, and caution.
Penelope is the ideal Greek woman
…show more content…
(Homer 1313-1316).
Penelope feels so uncomfortable with the suitors being in her house that she tells the beggar how she feels. She knows that she can't kick them out but that doesn't change her feelings toward them or her husband. Penelope demonstrates great loyalty by holding out hope that Odysseus is alive for the 20 years he was away fighting the Trojan war, and making his journey home to her. She summons the beggar to see if he knows anything about Odysseus, desperate to know if her husband is on the way home.
Abroad in great world, he may have heard rumors about Odysseus–may have known him! (Homer 1284-1285)
She is so hopeful that her husband will come home that she does everything she can to find out where he is, and even in the hardest of times she doesn't lose that hope that she's held onto. Penelope's loyalty is shown through her hope that Odysseus will return home and her persistence in not marrying any of the
Penelope and Penny are both Strong Independent Women and deep thinkers. Penelope spent twenty years alone with her son when Odysseus left and she had to be loyal the entire time. In addition, Penelope had to think about everything very thoroughly during the time when Odysseus was away. For example, she thought of the great idea of weaving a loom and when it was finished she would
In the Odyssey, there are typically two ways women are depicted - the pure, devoted housewife, or the enticing, irresistible seductress. For the most part, the housewives are seen as useless without men, only there to do household chores, domestic tasks and to take care of the children. Penelope is seemingly a great example of that; she’s seen as weak and very loyal towards Odysseus, in hopes that he will return. The seductresses mainly exist as trouble for men - drawing them off course and “forcing” them to be unfaithful to their wives. This is the case with Calypso as she traps Odysseus and refuses to let him go until a god interferes.
“My lady goddess, here is no cause for anger. My quiet Penelope—how well I know—would seem a shade before your majesty, death and old age being unknown to you, while she must die. Yet, it is true, each day I long for home…”, (Homer 56); (2) To expand, Odyssey always knew that he would get himself home, “She enchants him and wants him to stay and become her husband, but eventually Athena persuades Zeus to command her to let him return to Penelope.”
Instead, she deceives the suitors by telling them that she will marry one of them after she finishes weaving a robe. However, she would unravel the robe after completing it to postpone marrying another. This action represents Penelope’s commitment to her husband and dedication to him, despite not knowing his current status regarding whether he is alive. All of these are attributes that men in Ancient Greece found desirable in a
Throughout the story Penelope stays loyal to Odysseus by waiting 20 years for her husband to return. Odysseus shows his loyalty to Penelope by wanting to go home as far as rejecting immortality for Penelope. Penelope proves this when she says “How I long for my husband--alive in memory, always” (88). Odysseus shows his loyalty to Penelope when he tells Calypso to “Look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you, your beauty, stature.
Penelope conveys her loyalty by delaying another marriage to one of the suitors, which is how their strong relationship is preserved throughout Odysseus’ absence. Deceiving the suitors, “she had her great loom...and said to [them] ‘let me finish my weaving before I marry’... but every night by torchlight she unwove it” (22). For twenty years, Penelope remains loyal to Odysseus and does everything she can to preserve their relationship. Without her loyalty to him, she may have married a suitor, making her relationship with Odysseus over, thus emphasizing the necessity of loyalty to preserving strong
Is Penelope powerful,weak, or just complicated? In Homer’s The Odyssey, Penelope is a character that is cast to the side as a grieving wife, but she is much more than that. Penelope is a strong character because she’s wise and thoughtful in her actions, and she has an unbreakable will.
Even when Odysseus was away from home, she still was devoted to him and long awaited for him to return back to Ithaca. Throughout the Odyssey, Penelope is seen wishing for Odysseus to come home. Penelope asks Telemachus if he has heard any news about Odysseus and Telemachus tells her about his trip to Menelaus. Penelope states that when Odysseus left, her beauty was lost and if he came home her reputation would be greater than it was. When Odysseus returns home in disguise and tells Penelope that he has returned, Penelope offers gifts if he actually comes home.
In Homer’s Poem, The Odyssey, Penelope is the exceptionally patient and clever spouse of the infamous hero, Odysseus, and the mother of Telemachus. One poignant factor of Penelope’s character is her patience and devotion which is displayed throughout the poem. With her husband absent for a great majority of her life for the later of twenty years and his location unknown, Penelope stays, patiently awaiting Odysseus’ return, all whilst preserving their estate and raising her son by herself. Throughout this time, she had many persistent suitors in pursuit of her, abusing her husband’s absence.
If Penelope were to be the one to sleep with a suitor I assure you she’d be killed among the other maids like in book 22. But of course, that wasn't the case and in book 23 lines 417-422, Penelope tells Odysseus, “Think what difficulty the gods gave: they denied us life together in our prime and flowering years, kept us from crossing into age together. Forgive me, don't be angry. I could not welcome you with love on sight”. Penelopes questioning if Odysseus was actually who he claimed he was, was the epitome of her character.
For the many years that Odysseus has been away, Penelope is able
Imagine landing in a difficult situation... getting stranded from home, encountering beautiful woman at the same time, but you have a wife. You have to choose your wife, or a beautiful woman. This is exactly what happened to Odysseus on his travels in The Odyssey, by the Greek poet Homer. In this epic poem, Odysseus is married to his wife Penelope and has a happy family, who lives in Ithaca. Even though Odysseus has been stranded from home for many years, he still remains loyal to his wife.
In an epic poem, The Odyssey, by Homer, Odysseus struggles to come back home while his wife, Penelope, faces barbarous suitors who plague her house to court her for the marriage in order to claim the kingship of Ithaca. With an absence of the man of the household and a son who is not old enough to rule over the country and handle the domestic complications, Penelope endeavors to keep the household orderly and civilized. In order to prevent further chaos in the household, Penelope maintains her role as the Queen of Ithaca and Odysseus’s wife through her loyalty and cunning. For a woman who does not know when her man will return home, Penelope is extremely strong to keep hope and wait for her husband; thus, her unwavering loyalty to her husband
However, Penelope still loves Odysseus and remains loyal to him by stalling the marriage. She still continues to persist in being hopeful and refuses to believe that Odysseus will never return to her, so she creates several excuses to help her evade marriage for as long as possible. She presents tasks to keep the
Penelope comes up with a lot of ways to say no to the suitors about having affairs with her. By these actions the reader can infer that Penelope will not have affairs with the suitors because she loves Odysseus and no one