A book about the Greek Hero and his wife, Penelope
Introduction
Odyssey is a Greek hero he hails from the city of Ithaca. After the fall of the town of Troy, he loses his army, and he is stranded in an Ogygia island. Odyssey is trapped in Ogygia by Calypso, who is madly in love with him. She wants to keep this Hero to herself. Odyssey left a wife at Ithaca known as Penelope (Katz 37). He is father to Telemachus.
In Ithaca, there is a multitude of suitors who want to take Penelope to themselves. They plot to kill Odysseys son to remove their stumbling block. Calypso has imprisoned Odyssey in the island as he has no ship, he can’t leave. Back in Ithaca, people believe that Odyssey died in the war. The gods are seen debating on the future of the Hero. Athena persuades them to save Odyssey (Katz 45).
Zeus then sends Hermes to Calypso to instruct her to release Odyssey to go back to Ithaca. One of the Gods is unhappy with Odyssey for the act of blinding the son of Poseidon. He sends a storm to cause havoc on the ship odyssey is travelling in. Athena helps Odyssey from the vengeance directed to him by Poseidon (Butcher et al. 155).
He goes to Scheria the home of princess Nausicaa, the king and queen after he has introduced himself welcome him and is hospitable to him. They promise him a safe passage to Ithaca after he narrates his adventures to them. Odyssey is let go the next day, and he disguises himself as a beggar when he goes to Ithaca. Not very many people can recognize him. He kills the suitors with the help of his friends and can regain control of Ithaca (Van Nortwick 269).
The main reason why he wants to leave Calypso is that he was held hostage in Ogygia as he didn’t have an army or a ship to return home with. He wasn’t in love with Calypso as he already had a wife in Ithaca (Katz 30). Calypso had wanted him for herself, but he loved his wife, so he had to go back home.
Odyssey was very homesick. He always sat at the shore to cry as he had missed being home. He wasn’t happy to stay in Ogygia any longer. He felt that Calypso wasn’t appealing to him anymore and wanted to be back to his wife at Ithaca. He had felt that his love for her had faded and he only needed to be home with Penelope (Heubek et al. 45).
Qualities of Penelope
She is faithful to her husband, despite waiting for 20 years and not being able to see Odyssey she remains faithful to him even in his absence. She has many suitors, but she chooses to stay with Odyssey. She is compassionate and caring; she weeps during the night and longs for her husband to come home (Katz 15).
She is as clever as a woman. Penelope eludes the suitor’s advances by stating that she would marry a suitor as when something had happened. For instance, she says that she will marry the man who will be able to shoot between axes. She is portrayed as being artistic and cunning. She is seen using delaying tactics to buy her more time to wait for the husband to return (Van Nortwick 269).
She is very intelligent as she pretends that she won’t marry tuntil she had married her husband; this move sees her buy a lot of time. She gives the Archery challenge to lock the suitors out as she was very knowledgeable that only Odyssey would be able to short the arrow through the arranged axes.
Weaving as a symbol
Penelope throughout this story intertwines the storytelling ideas and deception. She uses symbols to hide her plans. Penelope states that she will “spin a thread of her own. “She nicknames Telemachus as a “Spinner of Falsehoods just like his father was. “(Butcher et al. 155) She uses the statement Spinning Tale to portray her inventions. She states that the story does not necessarily portray the truth but instead, it just a creation of it. He uses the weaving of fibre crafts to deceive, tells lies and storytelling.
Penelope’s weaving projects are all lies; she is heard saying that she will be married only after finishing the weaving project for the father in law. She destroys the project every night for her to spend a lot of time on sewing her project (Heubek et al. 45). A servant about her secret betrayed her, and this made the suitors more aggressive towards her.
Penelope is a clever woman and uses every way possible to ensure she is still faithful to Odyssey. She deceives the suitors on the sewing Shroud; she destroys her progress each day to make the wait last longer for her to be able to wait for the husband. She knows what she is doing as she recognized Odyssey even though he was disguised as a beggar (Katz 52). She purposely set the archers challenge as she knew only the husband would be able to shoot the arrow as expected.
Conclusion
This book tells s us a lot about the Greek Hero and his wife, Penelope. She is left behind during the war and fails to see the husband for about twenty years. During this time, many suitors sought her hand n marriage. Odyssey is in captivity and doesn’t know when he would be able to see his family—the symbol of weaving issued in this book to bring out the deceptive, cunning nature of Penelope.
Works cited list
Butcher, Samuel Henry, and Andrew Lang. The Odyssey of Homer done into English prose.
Macmillan, 1890:155
Heubek, Alfred, et al. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Introduction and Books I-VIII. Vol.
- Oxford University Press on Demand, 1990:45
Katz, Marylin A. Penelope’s Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey. Vol. 1173.
Princeton University Press, (2014):15-52.
Van Nortwick, Thomas. “Penelope and Nausicaa.” Transactions of the American Philological
Association (1974-) 109 (1979): 269-276.