Penelope In Homer's Odyssey

Odysseus, a household name thanks to English class in high school. Students spend weeks analyzing his character and journey. Learning that Odysseus fits all the characteristics of the classic hero; strength, courage, nobility and his most distinguishing strait, intelligence. Many view Odysseus as the hero of the Odyssey but there is another character that has the same traits as Odysseus and that is Penelope, his wife. She is often forgotten in the shadow of her husband even though she is essential to the story. Ovid’s Heroines by Daryl Hine brings Penelope into the light and shows that she is much more than the wife of an Odysseus, but a hero, just as great as her husband. The Odyssey has been as much Penelope’s journey as it is Odysseus. Penelope’s journey is waiting for home to truly become home again, just as Odysseus is using is clever wit to survive his various enemies so is Penelope. She weaves and …show more content…
107) she knows that she can only stay her ground for so long. Penelope has been alone for twenty years, half of that she knew where her husband was but the last ten she has been suffering. She keeps the faith that he is alive but has no idea where he is and it may seem that she has been sitting on her hands, but in Ovid’s Heroines’ it shows that she has been active in the search of Odysseus by sending out letters and Pylos and over and over again she has been disappointed. Penelope can only take so much, in the Odyssey she says “How could I? wasted with longing for Odysseus, while here they press for marriage.” (pg. 357 line 160). Odysseus’s temptations lie in the flesh and making a new life for himself because his journey has become too overpowering. Penelope’s is very much the same, the temptation to move on to a new life to leave behind her