Penelope in the Odyssey
Laura Slapikoff

• A. Telemakhos' coming of age: single, critical moment of passage from boyhood to manhood.
  • 1. Penelope at transition point (19.615)

  • "My son being still a callow boy forbade/marriage, or absence from my lord's domain;/but now the child is grown, grown up, a man"

• B. Great Mother imagery
  • 1. lion (4.844)

  • "Penelope at that hour in her high chamber/lay silent, tasting neither food nor drink,/and thought of nothing but her princely son/could he escape, or would they find and kill him?/her mind turning at bay, like a cornered lion"
    • a) lion symbolically associated with Great Mother goddesses (Cybele; Attis)

    • b) also associated with death, bravery, strength

  • 2. similarities w/Demeter
    • a) death/rebirth
      • (1) weeping

      • (2) suspension of attention to beauty (winter)

    • b) denies herself food

    • c) child coming of age forces her to redefine herself culturally

• A. has charge of household while Odysseus is at Troy (18.333)
  • "Here, then, you must attend to everything./My parents in our house will be a care for you/as they are now, or more, while I am gone./Wait for the beard to darken our boy's cheek;/then marry whom you will, and move away."

• B. suitors
  • 1. mock wedding feast
    • a) appears veiled (bride; concealment)

  • 2. deception
    • a) weaving/unweaving Laertes' shroud

    • b) question regarding showing of herself to suitors and asking them for gifts

• C. recognition
  • 1. suggests strategy for proving suitors' unworthiness. I shall decree a contest for the day./The one who easily handles and strings the bow/and shoots through all twelve axes I shall marry.

  • 2. Penelope's dream (19.620)

  • Twenty fat geese are feeding on grain beside her house, she is delighted to see them. Eagle comes and destroys the geese, declaring itself to be Odysseus.
    • a) geese
      • (1) geese as suitors
        • (a) symbolic associations w/Aphrodite, Eros, Priapus (phallic god) suggests erotic/phallic interpretation

      • (2) geese as Penelope
        • (a) geese also associated w/Hera, signifying love, watchfulness, good housewife

  • D. homoiosophrunae: like-mindedness
    • 1. laughter
      • a) laughter of Odysseus and Penelope of a different character than that of suitors
        • (1) Penelopeís laughter (17.712) is followed by lucidity; this is her moment of rebirth or emergence from her weeping death-state, when she instructs Eumaios to send the stranger to her, having allowed herself to experience emotionally the possibility that Odysseus will return.

        • (2) Odysseus' heart laughed (18.349) when he observed Penelope showing herself to suitors and demanding wedding gifts of them.

        • (3) Suitors break into chaotic and uncontrollable laughter when Telemakhos informs them that the decision whom she will marry is now Penelope's (20.386)

    • 2. Comparison to Clytemnestra
      • a) The story of Clytemnestra's betrayal of Agamemnon returns throughout the Odyssey providing stark contrast to the relationship between Penelope and Odysseus

    • 3. Comparison to Helen
      • a) Odyssey presents ambiguous picture of Helen, alternately condemning and praising her, but Helenís intuitive and erotic powers ultimately appear weak beside Penelope's more strategic and civilized self-control.

• A. weaving

• B. wisdom

Sources Used

• Hasher, Uvo. "Penelope and the Suitors." From Schein, Seth L., ed., Reading the Odyssey. Princeton
  
• University Press, Princeton. (c) 1996, p. 139.

Contact the author, Laura Slapikoff
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