Gruesome monsters, enchanting sirens and heroes bigger than life… the world of Homer’s The Odyssey, is a foreign one. Perhaps then it is unfair to judge any aspect of its character’s behaviors against our modern standards. Ancient Greece was clearly a patriarchal society and the women were not seen as equal to men. However, unfair or not, as I was not raised in ancient Greece and do not intrinsically think the way that an ancient would, I can’t help but view Homer’s description of women through my contemporary mindset. The women in The Odyssey are often spoken about with contempt and portrayed as lesser beings, inferior to men in most aspects.
One of the strongest depictions of the patriarchal society that The Odyssey exists in is in Homer’s treatment of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. In Book 1, Telemachus relates to a disguised Athena how his house has been overtaken by the princes of the area as they attempt to court his mother. He laments that “she neither rejects a marriage she despises nor can she bear to bring the courting to an end …show more content…
We see several examples of women unable to remain loyal once a man decides to seduce her or a god influence her, often leading to the destruction of other men. Odysseus would never have been away from home in the first place Helen hadn’t been bewitched by a god to run away to with the prince of Troy, (23.246-49). We are told that even though Clytemnestra, wife of Agememnon, wants to remain faithful, Aegisthus strips her of her protector and she is powerless against his charms (3.303-10) which leads to Agememnon’s death. Even the lowly swineherd, Eumaeus, was once a beloved prince only brought low because of the treachery of a woman seduced “by a long deep embrace that can break a women’s will, even the best alive (15.472-73).” In the world of the Odyssey, a woman can’t have a will of her own that isn’t influenced or overpowered in one way or
One of the strongest depictions of the patriarchal society that The Odyssey exists in is in Homer’s treatment of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. In Book 1, Telemachus relates to a disguised Athena how his house has been overtaken by the princes of the area as they attempt to court his mother. He laments that “she neither rejects a marriage she despises nor can she bear to bring the courting to an end …show more content…
We see several examples of women unable to remain loyal once a man decides to seduce her or a god influence her, often leading to the destruction of other men. Odysseus would never have been away from home in the first place Helen hadn’t been bewitched by a god to run away to with the prince of Troy, (23.246-49). We are told that even though Clytemnestra, wife of Agememnon, wants to remain faithful, Aegisthus strips her of her protector and she is powerless against his charms (3.303-10) which leads to Agememnon’s death. Even the lowly swineherd, Eumaeus, was once a beloved prince only brought low because of the treachery of a woman seduced “by a long deep embrace that can break a women’s will, even the best alive (15.472-73).” In the world of the Odyssey, a woman can’t have a will of her own that isn’t influenced or overpowered in one way or