The Iliad Character Analysis

When looking through important epics and mythological tales, specifically The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Sinbad the Sailor, readers can see that women play a far different role than men. In each of these texts, the protagonist is always a male character, who is brave, strong, and determined. The women never play these roles, but instead are an accessory to these protagonists, as well as flat and static characters; such as Eurycleia in The Odyssey, with her main goal being to tend to Odysseus, and she shows no other real traits or goals through the whole text (Homer, Book 19. Lines 520-521). These women also are directly characterized through the perspective of the main characters acting as the narrator to describe their beauty and importance to tending to the protagonists. Consequently, these women are rarely seen as dynamic and large, yet the …show more content…
Since many of these women are only seen for a short period of time, they must be static since they have no time to change. Four characters that reflect this are the two wives in the story of Sindbad the Sailor, and Nausicaa from The Odyssey. Since the two wives from Sindbad are not named, they did not have a chance to develop as characters, other than the narrator discussing that they were beautiful women, and now his brides. Nausicaa is discussed as a beautiful woman, while including she had grown smitten with Odysseus. After her two short days with him, Odysseus leaves, and the readers do not see her in the story again. This is similar to the fact that these women are also flat characters. Odysseus’ wife and maid are both flat in the sense that they have one main goal and do not show change. Penelope is always waiting for her husband, and the maid will always see Odysseus as her master, and continue to serve him. Since they are static, they play a supporting role to the