Women In The Odyssey

Transferring Power from Hero to Heroine Throughout literature and film, women are often portrayed in a distinct manner; subservient to men, naive, and powerless against the forces of evil. Childhood fairytales reinforce the idea that a woman’s duties are to take care of the home and children, and follow the rule of the husband. Women are portrayed as naive, fragile, and very innocent. Often times when that distinct line between innocence and adulthood is crossed, also known in fairytales as, “good and evil”, bad things happen. This conditions children to believe that women are not as strong as men, and should refrain from being independent grown individuals. This depiction of women is so commonplace and frequent, that when literature portrays …show more content…
For the twenty years the Odysseus is away from home, she remains steadfast in taking care of the kingdom. This is one of the ways that she is fitting the mold of the “ideal woman”, one who takes good care of the home. Although this reinforces the past ideals that society placed on women, Penelope’s ability to prevent the downfall of the kingdom actually suggests how intelligent she is. Another value that Penelope displays is faithfulness and fidelity. She serves as a symbol of a good wife who remains loyal to her husband. She also used her intelligence to preserve Odysseus’s kingdom. Knowing that whichever suitor she would regret to marry would become king, she used her wit to delay the act of choosing a husband, “Young men, my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more, go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until i can finish off this web”…”by day she’d weave at her great and growing web— by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she’d done”. She gave the suitors hope in the possibility of marriage by promising to give her hand to someone after she had finished weaving her shroud. If the suitors were given no inclination as to the potential of marriage and the transfer of royal powers, they could have easily caused unrest and taken the kingdom for themselves in a violent free for all. …show more content…
Women are expected to be hospitable and welcoming to anyone and everyone who shows up at her door. The men of Odysseus’ crew had written Circe into their story as a nymph who served as a host, offering them food and hospitably on their journey. The moment they reached Circe’s palace was the moment that they began to lose control over how Circe fit into their story, “She opened her gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting them all in, and in they went, all innocence”. When a shift in power occurs, there exists a character who transitions from innocence to being exposed to a type of evil. Odysseus’ crew “went, all innocence”, which means that they believed that nothing evil was about to happen to them, they blindly trusted the hospitality of this beautiful nymph. Later on, Circe turns the men into pigs, “all of them bristling into swine-with grunts, snouts-even their bodies, yes, and only the men’s minds stayed steadfast as before”. Her deceit and trickery is backed with intelligence which makes her magic that much more effective. Circe turns the men into pigs but she leaves their minds as humans, which creates a sense of vulnerability and helplessness. Their bodies are pigs but their brains are left to think about the effects of Circe’s power. Eventually, Odysseus beats her at her own game, convinces her to turn his men back into their original state, and demands