The Ideal Greek Woman And Wife In Penelope In Homer's Odyssey

Lulu Oliveri

Ms. Fernandez

English CP - Pink class

19 May 2023

Penelope is the Ideal Greek Woman and Wife

Penelope is the exemplary Greek woman and wife, embodying the core values of her culture. In the epic poem The Odyssey written by Homer, Penelope waits at home while her husband Odysseus is away fighting the Trojan war. In the twenty years he is away fighting and making his journey home, more than one hundred suitors are living in her home and attempting to coerce her to marry them. She allows the suitors into her home because of the Greek value of Xenia and throughout the poem she keeps this up. She comes up with many brilliant plans in order to evade the suitors and not go against her values. Penelope is the ideal Greek woman and wife, who represents the values of her culture.This can be seen through her loyalty, wiles, and caution.

Penelope is the ideal Greek woman

(Homer 1313-1316).

Penelope feels so uncomfortable with the suitors being in her house that she tells the beggar how she feels. She knows that she can't kick them out but that doesn't change her feelings toward them or her husband. Penelope demonstrates great loyalty by holding out hope that Odysseus is alive for the 20 years he was away fighting the Trojan war, and making his journey home to her. She summons the beggar to see if he knows anything about Odysseus, desperate to know if her husband is on the way home.

Abroad in great world, he may have heard rumors about Odysseus–may have known him! (Homer 1284-1285)

She is so hopeful that her husband will come home that she does everything she can to find out where he is, and even in the hardest of times she doesn't lose that hope that she's held onto. Penelope's loyalty is shown through her hope that Odysseus will return home and her persistence in not marrying any of the