Penny Vs. Penelope In Homer's Odyssey

Although Odysseus is a famous, intelligent and heroic figure, his loyalty to Penelope is nonexistent. This is revealed by his affairs with other woman, his extended journey home, and by the fact that he failed to make Penelope his priority. Loyalty is not a difficult concept, all Odysseus had to do to fulfill this was avoid other women, and put Penelope above his selfish ways. His failure to do this proves him to be an unreliable husband, who does not deserve his selfless and trustworthy wife. Loyalty is an essential part of marriage or any relationship and requires both people involved in the relationship. In this case Odysseus is one of those people, but unlike in a good relationship he fails to uphold the duties to be faithful to the other

No relationship is perfect. All relationships have their issues, but most can be worked out. Many relationships are put under strain by duty and lack of attention. Penelope and Odysseus are one example of this. In the painting Penelope and Odysseus, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein uses the conversation between Odysseus and Penelope to show that duty often tears families apart, while in the poem “You Are Odysseus,” Linda Pastan uses the same scene to show that partners need attention and love to feel appreciated. Poems and paintings can help teach us lessons about the human experience. “You Are Odysseus” can teach us that partners need attention and love to feel appreciated by elaborating on Penelope’s point of view. Penelope and Odysseus

In the first section of the Odyssey, women are presented to us as controlled by the culture of the day, and it is only within that area that we can consider the way Odysseus provides women to be admired or despised throughout his journey. But he uses it through how they come upon him when meeting, for example disloyal woman. Melantho which is the maid servant of Penelope and Clytemnestra, who is the spouse of Agamemnon, are two of the main people that are completely disloyal. In the book, Melantho is presented as rude to Odysseus and Queen Penelope, she hides behind Penelope's back and consists of having a relationship with one of their suitors. In the end it didn’t go as planned for her, but she got killed along with the other suitors trying to save her lover. She was tired of listening to others and not being able to be with the guy she

In the Odyssey, when Odysseus comes back to Ithaca to retake his throne and his family, he comes disguised as a beggar. He does this to stay hidden from Penelope and to collect information to find a way to get rid of the suitors. In Penelope’s dream, an eagle kills all her geese. The eagle is Odysseus and the geese are the suitors. Penelope’s dream is foreshadowing what is going to happen to the suitors.

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” -Erich Fromm

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.

Once in a while leaders can get occupied, even the considerable ones, however they must understand that they committed an error and must endure the outcomes. Various leaders lead for the recognition. Odysseus from The Odyssey and Everett from O Brother Where Art Thou were both astonishing leaders and their men admired them. In spite of their likenesses there are a few things that set them apart. Despite the fact that Everett and Odysseus are similar, Everett has better initiative abilities, which at last causes him and his group get to where they have to go.

Yes, Penelope struggles greatly with a very important decision throughout the course of the story.

Women are weak, helpless, and have no real purpose other than to serve men and take care of children. . . or so they were perceived in history. In the Odyssey, one can see that Homer’s portrayal of women challenges the depiction of women during that time period. Throughout the book, many women intervened in Odysseus’ journey home to Ithaca, for better or for worse. One will see Penelope, Athena, Circe, and other women impact Odysseus’ expedition home. These women influenced the conditions of the journey by guiding Odysseus in different directions, and aiding him crucially. Their authority showed the idea behind an old proverb, which states, “Behind every great man there’s a great woman”. Throughout The Odyssey, the women exemplified their power during the course of Odysseus’ journey.

In “Gender and the Homeric Epic”, an article by Nancy Felson and Laura M. Slatkin, the gender roles of various characters in The Odyssey, an epic poem by Homer, are examined in the constraining and progressive lens Homer takes. The characters of the epic most explicitly analyzed are Odysseus and his wife, Penelope; in this article the authors show the traditional gender roles both adhere to, but also exhibit the ways in which the characters are able to reach across the restraining gender roles, without making this story entirely about gender. Through this article one can see that the constraining nature of gender roles seen in society, is not inherent in the society presented in The Odyssey, which describes an intrinsic fluidity which is seen in a plethora of characters.

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

The whole story happened during the dark centuries of women in Greece, when their value was limited behind men. However The “Odyssey” gives an opportunity to horror their role, also rejecting all erroneous preconceptions about the woman. Penelope -- a typical woman who represents for an image of a devoted wife, a mother of family and she is also an image of how women was treated at Greece. This is a contradictory character with many complicated personalities: covers by meekness, frailty, some time seems tearful but in the key moments she completely proves herself by the strength, independence and wiseness. She is pushed in a prank of destiny, it is deft and gentle weaves her life as she weave garment then all the threats is lead to by this gentleness. Her hellish life starts since all uninvited suitors come and ask for marriage, she is in a very dangerous situation.

Upon being left by her husband during a decade-long journey, Penelope’s depressed character, like Hecuba’s character, accentuates the misery of women during that time. Once stripped of the only source of power and happiness they had—men in society—women were deemed miserable, useless, and awful in society. Penelope spent years waiting for Odysseus, and the audience watches as a beautiful, popular woman, weeps over her missing husband and lives a long, melancholy life. Penelope grows impatient and stagnantly miserable; she begins to wish for death, for life was not worth living without her husband in her life. She begs, “How I wish chaste Artemis would give me a death so soft and now I would not go on in my heart, grieving all my life and longing for love of a husband excellent in every virtue.”(Homer. 202-204) Not only was Penelope giving up on life with the absence of Odysseus, her cries and longing for death express her powerlessness and uselessness in society. Without a loving husband in her life, she was nothing but a grieving, unhappy Greek woman who was capable of nothing but weeping. Her strength is nonexistent and she is literally unable to carry on without her husband. The Odyssey, like The Trojan Women, successfully illustrates the life of a Greek woman in ancient times. Both prose show the different ways women were complacent in society; women willingly accepted this

Despite the uncertainty of whether her husband and son were dead or alive (Homer 151), she continues to display strength and independence while patiently awaiting their return. Penelope is a beautiful example of an ancient Greek woman who upheld the traditions and values of woman during her time period. Despite the absence of her family, she continued to maintain and uphold her family name – bringing dignity and honor to her family. Each household duty that she completed was part of a larger goal, maintaining the value and meaning of their family name. While each one of these duties she accomplished might have appeared small in comparison to the achievements that the rest of her family obtained in native lands, she never lost faith. Every day she continued to perform her family duties and the duties of her society. It was through the accomplishments and strength of Penelope that the reputation and heritage of Odyssey could be