Just as Mallory mentioned in class today, one of my favorite things about The Odyssey so far is the picture of Penelope's faithfulness to Odysseus. I personally think that most people would've given up hope of their husbands return after just a year or two. Yet Penelope, even ten years later, is still believing that he'll come home to her. That takes great faithfulness; a faithfulness a lot of people wouldn't understand. That fact that most everyone around her is willing and wanting to let him go and move on, yet she clings to the hope that he's still alive is so touching. She is so dedicated to him she is even willing to be devious... ;)
P.s. I commented on Danielle's "An Iron Heart"
my first car was this terrible piece of metal that constantly broke down. I named it Penelope hoping that it would want to live up to it's name. It didn't work....
ReplyDeletePenelope is such an amazing picture of faithfulness, and also of how they must have seen women. I mean, we see so often in chauvinistic cultures this complete lack of ability to see virtue in women. But in this picture (and also in the female goddess athena) we see a women who is using her wit to control her own life and to remain virtuous. We don't see her as a "woman", or an object, we see her as Penelope. I'm really enjoying that about the Greeks. I think maybe this has to do with their idea of "role". LIke, a slave women or man is an object, but a great lady or man of noble birth is a real human being. It just seems like less of a gender war.
I liked that her description of being "devious" isn't necessarily a bad thing like in today's culture. When a woman, or man for that matter, is described as having a devious nature in our society, it's almost a derogetory statement, but in Penelope's case it is a testament to her cunning wit and commitment to her husband.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Especially after seeing Clytemnestra agree to let her brother-in-law kill Agamemnon, it's refreshing to see a woman who can actually stay committed to her husband. It seems like marriage isn't such a big deal in the Greek culture. It's perfectly okay for a man to have other women on the side of his marriage. Call me old fashioned, but i believe marriage is sacred. You can't just blow it off on a whim. It's serious and I think Penelope is one of the few characters in The Odyssey to get that concept!
ReplyDeleteI think Odysseus and Penelope are a perfect match for each other because she's as cunning as he is. She wards off a bunch of suitors for 3 years for Pete's sake by acting like she's making a funeral shroud for her father-in-law! If Odysseus had been there when all that was happening, he definitely would've been proud of her.
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