The odyssey and the Penelopiad Compared
The Odyssey is an epic ancient Greek poem attributed to Homer. The poem is about the 10-year struggle of Odysseus in his mission to return home after the battle of Trojan. Odysseus battles with mystical creatures and faces the wrath of the gods; which makes his journey back long and challenging. Meanwhile, his wife and son are waiting for him, and they have a hard time getting rid of the suitors vying to marry Penelope since they think that Odysseus in long dead. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood gives a female version of the ten years that Odysseus was away. Penelope is the queen, and during the absence of Odysseus, she gets faced with a hard task of remaining faithful in the hope that her husband, Odysseus, will return. Although the Odyssey and the Penelopiad tell the same story, the poem and the book are from different perspectives. As the Odyssey highlights how Odysseus faces the wrath of the gods, the Penelopiad explains the place of women in ancient Greek by highlighting how Penelope fought for her honor in the absence of her husband. This essay will compare the Odyssey and the Penelopiad while discussing how and to what effect the Penelopiad influences the reading of the Odyssey.
One of the themes that stand out in both the Odyssey and the Penelopiad is the place of women in society. In the Odyssey, women get presented as objects and creatures of destruction. First, the Trojan War was caused by Hellen. In an attempt to recover Hellen from the Trojans, Odyssey accompanies King Menelaus to battle. After the battle, the journey of Odyssey is continuously distracted by women. For instance, Odyssey is held the prisoner for seven years by a goddess. Most of his crew get eaten up by sea goddesses and the ones who survive get lured by sirens; female monsters who dwell in the sea and attract men by singing luring songs. Although the goddess Athena works tirelessly to ensure the safe return of Odysseus, many female mythical creatures stand in the way of Odysseus. In the Penelopiad, women are portrayed as a source of moral support. According to Irshad et al. (2016), Penelope defies the myth that women are incapable of manly duties when she runs the vast estates of Odysseus all by herself. As such, it goes to show that women are dependable creatures, unlike how they were portrayed in the Odyssey.
The Penelopiad further goes to exploit the personalities of women that were earlier taken for granted. Earlier, as evident in the Odyssey, women were mostly viewed as sexual objects. In the Penelopiad, Hellen is seen as a beautiful woman because she is sexually attractive. Penelope is convinced that her suitors do not want her because she is charming, instead because of the vast wealth her father will give to the winner. The values of Penelope as a wise and diligent lady get undervalued as her beauty cannot measure up to the beauty of Hellen. In line with Bottez (2012), the values of a woman were not put into consideration since the men managed all the estates on behalf of their wives. It is one of the reasons why wealthy fathers sought suitors for their daughters. The suitors would, in turn, manage the estates since women were viewed as incapable.
The Penelopiad gives a voice to the maids who stood by Penelope. In the Odyssey, the poem only revolves around the power and the mighty. The story goes further to explain how the suitors wanted to marry Penelope in the hope to inherit the estates of Odysseus and become King. The suitors mentioned are from well-up families. In his quest to find his father, Telemachos only interacts with the Kings of foreign lands. However, in the Penelopiad, one gets an insight into how the poor used to live during the ancient Greek era. Atwood gives a voice to the poor by using the maids in the Penelopiad. The twelve maids stood by Penelope when her husband was away because of obligation, rather than loyalty. According to Nunes (2019), the maids were parentless, classless, and they were under the obligation to obey their queen. As such, the ancient Greek era was ruled by class with the poor serving as servants to the rich.
In the Penelope and the Odyssey, women are viewed as sexual creatures. When the nymph Calypso imprisons Odysseus as a sex slave, the gods are furious, and they ask her to let go of Odysseus. The goddess is devastated that the gods sleep with immortal women all the time, but when a goddess sleeps with a mortal man, the gods get furious. Therefore, in the Odyssey, women are not at will to choose their sexual partners. It is also evident when fathers want suitors for their daughters regardless of whether their daughters are sexually attracted to the men or not. The Penelopiad sheds more insight into the sexual matters as the palace maids discuss the events. As the Penelopiad begins, Penelope says that rape is a common phenomenon as even the gods continually rape women. In light with Howells (2008), the maids regularly fall victims of abuse to the suitors, and they have to contend with it since it is a common phenomenon. Therefore, the Penelopiad strengthens the Odyssey view of the sexualization of women by giving accounts of the palace maids and how they got raped by the suitors.
The theme of class is reinforced in the Penelopiad. Although all people suffer, people of different levels suffer differently. The issue of the poor citizens is highlighted in the Odyssey when Odysseus had to disguise himself as a beggar. The suitors ridicule him, and they do not feel threatened by his presence because of his social class. After all, a weak and dirty beggar cannot win the hand of a queen like Penelope with so many wealthy and noble suitors around. The theme of class is reinforced in the Penelopiad through the fate of the poor maids. The level of Penelope as a queen protects her from the suitors, and they cannot harm her physically or sexually. However, her twelve maids suffer in the male-dominated society of Greece. The maids are raped both by the Greek gods and mortal men. Their lowly societal class ensures that they are not protected and the offenders go unpunished for their deeds. According to Arnado (2017), the poor got affected physically, emotionally, and psychologically as the offenders went unpunished for their deeds. The theme of class is further reinforced when Odysseus kills the maids and describes them as whores. The Greece society has no justice for the poor seeing that the maids were not only raped but eventually killed. As such, the Penelopiad highlights the injustice against the poor in ancient Greece society.
The theme of justice gets a more profound highlight in the Penelopiad. In the Odyssey, justice seems to come from some form of divine power. The Greece gods are powerful and temperamental. Poseidon exacts his vengeance by bringing misery to Odysseus and frustrating his efforts of going home. As the poem begins, the gods are engaged in a conversation where they justify the killing of Aigisthos, who killed Agamemnon and took his wife. As such, in the Odyssey, murders carried out by mortal men are justified by the gods. However, the Penelopiad paints the acts of justice as pure revenge rather that divine justice. If the killings were divine justice, the twelve maids who served Penelope would have gotten spared as they too were victims of rape. The Penelopiad views the murders as acts of vengeance since Odysseus planned to murder the suitors and the maids, rather than the offenders getting punished by the gods for their evil deeds. In line with, Kapuscinski (2007), the Penelopiad portrays justice as acts of vengeance rather than divine justice by the gods.
In conclusion, The Penelopiad reinforces the view of the Odyssey. The Penelopiad is narrated from a female point of view, as compared to the Odyssey. As such, one can get deeper insights into the Greece era, some of which are not highlighted in the Odyssey. The Penelopiad influences the view of the Odyssey by narrating the events that took place in Ithaca in the absence of Odysseus.
References
Arnedo, S. S. (2017). Rewriting The Odyssey: Margaret Atwood´s The Penelopiad. 15.
Bottez, M. (2012). Another Penelope: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series, (01), 49-56.
Howells, C. A. (2008). Five Ways of Looking at’The Penelopiad’. Sydney Studies in English, 32.
Irshad, S., & Banerji, N. (2016). Deconstructing Gender and Myth in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. ANGLISTICUM. Journal of the Association-Institute for English Language and American Studies, 2(3), 35-41.
Kapuscinski, K. (2007). Ways of Sentencing: Female Violence and Narrative Justice in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Essex Human Rights Review, 4(2).
Nunes, R. (2014). Looking into Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad: Appropriation, parody and class issues. Palimpsesto-Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da UERJ, 13(18), 228-240.