The Role of Gender in the Odyssey - Essay Example

In keeping with the epic tradition, The Odyssey focuses upon male heroes who perform exalted war-related deeds. Analyze the placement of female characters in relation to this formulaic emphasis. Homer’s Odyssey is one of the two major ancient literary works attributed to Homer. It defines an epic tale of love, courage, revenge, strength and social attitudes of the ancient Greek mythology. This poem focuses on the three central characters namely Telemachus, Ulysses (Telemachus’ father) and Penelope (Telemachus’ mother). Gender play a very import role in the Odyssey specially the female characters, discussion in the following paragraphs involves the analysis of these major characters. Female Characters of the Odyssey: 1) Penelope: There are various female characters of historical and mythical importance in this ancient Greek masterpiece. The importance of these characters is pivotal. The most important character among them is Penelope the mother of Telemachus and the faithful wife of Odysseus. The patience and devotion of this character is admirable, for almost twenty years she kept herself devoted for her long gone husband. Intelligently tackling the situation in which her destiny brought her. Though in ancient times women were considered to be weaker than men and in the male dominated society tactfully violating the rules set for the social role of woman could not be an easy job. Penelope emerges as the strong presence of feminism in the poem, which in order to divert or snub the odious suitors, takes refuge in weaving. She states that she won’t marry until she has woven a mourning gown for her father in law. And for three consecutive years she keeps on hiding from the suitors by un-weaving the gown in the night and delaying the marriage. Until a traitorous maid discloses the secret to the suitors, who then start to pressurize her to choose one of them as her husband and future king of Ithaca. Some of them also ask the gods to intervene to kill her or convince her to marry. Penelope is left alone, while both her son and husband are away from Ithaca. She is forced to make a decision, but in order to keep the honor of her esteemed husband, announces that she would only marry the man who could string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow from twelve axle shaft. But the fact is that apart from her husband, the only man who can do it is her son. In the meantime Odysseus emerges in Ithaca in the disguise of a beggar, participates in the competition and successfully shoots the arrow, resultantly won the Penelope hand in marriage by defeating the other suitors and claimed that he is the long gone ruler of this land Odysseus. Here too the Penelope did not allow her emotions to take over her intelligence and she decided to test the reality of this suitors and ordered one of the nurse to bring her bed out of her room and “after bringing the stout bedstead, put bedding upon it” (Book 23, Line 179), she knew that if it would be her real husband not an imposter he would know about the reality of the bed. And in the end Homer describes that Odysseus honors her faithful wife by killing all the suitors and begins ruling his kingdom wisely along with Telemachus (Murnaghan, 1986). She proved her worth in a disadvantageous and male dominated society and kept her vow, her character is one who knows what to get form life. 2) Goddess Athena: Another important character is Telemachus’ protector god Athena that encourages him to travel towards the distant land in search of his father and throw the suitors out from his property once and for all by motivating her by saying “you know, few sons turns out be like their fathers;/most turn out worse, a few better. No you don’t have it in you to be a fool and coward. And you have got something of Odysseus brains.” (Book 2, Line 349). This character supports Telemachus’ journey to Troy by arranging the ship, crew and other accessories. During the voyage she asks the gods to help the safe landing of the crew, and asks for the help of Nestor’s son (a renowned warrior). And on their arrival in troy they discover that Odysseus had long sailed from the land they started the journey back home, but Athena knew that Odysseus is also sailing toward Ithaca. When Odysseus reaches Ithaca she disguises him into a beggar, so that he could observe the changes and motives of his kingdom. Athena the daughter of Zeus plays a pivotal in the odyssey, she help and taken care of Odysseus throughout his journey’s and asked Zeus to interfere in various situation when Odysseus finds himself to be alone. During his escape from Cyclops she asked Zeus to allow his ship to safe reach Ithaca. But there could raise a question that why Athena didn’t help Penelope to get rid of the suitors, while they were destroying her land, eating her sheep and destroying the Odysseus and Telemachus’ wealth. There could be only one reason for it that Athena wants them to return home gloriously and restore the honor and pride of their family. The assistance provided by her to Odysseus’s family was out of respect, because she finds him worthy to be the king of Ithaca. Throughout odyssey she acted like a kinship of Odysseus and Telemachus which acted for their benefit and demanded nothing in return (Blundell, pp. 55-56). 3) Calypso: Calypso was the daughter of Atlas of Titan tribe; she kept Odysseus at her place for seven years and treated her well. This character depicts the power of feminism in the odyssey, as Calypso restrained Odysseus from returning to his homeland for seven years. Homer here tactfully presented the manipulative and dominant side of woman, which again purposes a threat to the male dominated ancient Greek society, which he could not allow as gave an insight “the nymph was no longer pleasing to him," (Book 5, Line 153). Resultantly Odysseus became vary of the luxurious lifestyle Calypso provided and started longing for his land. Calypso could not allow this happen but Zeus sends Hermes to command Calypso to allow Odysseus to return home (Jeremy, pp. 350). 4) Circe: An important role of the odyssey that seduced Odysseus with the help of her alluring voice, when in fact she was monstrous goddess, Odysseus and his men could not withstand her voice and asked to enter her house. This weakness of his allows Circe to exploit it by tricking his men and with the help of her magic turned them into swine. Odysseus with the help of a protective drug and the advice of Hermes protected himself and rescued his men from the captivity of Circe (Pomeroy, pp. 68-70). Along with these two important characters, there are various small female characters that emerge from time to time in the Odyssey. Such as Helen, the wife of Menelaus, who warmly receives Telemachus in Sparta and offers her hospitality. There are also some goddesses who plot various schemes and are involved in supporting and thwarting various characters of the Odyssey (Walcot, 2009). Another female character is Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, the queen of Asia Minor during the time of Trojan War. Chryseis is the bone of contention and the reason why Achilles and Agamemnon go to war against each other, the beautiful girl becomes a war prize. "Since Phoebus Apollo is taking away my Chryseis, Whom Im sending back aboard ship with my friends, Im coming to your hut and taking Briseis, Your own beautiful prize, so that you will see just how much stronger I am than you." (Puchner, 2012, p. 234) While analyzing these female characters, the importance of any character cannot be ignored, Homer has articulated these characters very skillfully. List of References Blundell, Susan. Women in Ancient Greece. Harvard University Press, 1995 (pp 55-56). Web. Read More