The odessey paper
In the Odessey, Homer has focused on the masculine characters as the most prominent. This is to be expected when one looks at the time period in which he lived, but there are some notable exceptions of some outstanding female characters. This does not mean that women were the focus of the story, they were not. What this means is that there were some surprisingly important female characters that played essential roles within the story. It comes as a surprise that during a time when women played such secondary roles in day to day life, Homer would choose to create such powerful characters as Athena, without whom Odysseus would have perished many times. One example of Athena helping Odysseus throughout his journey back to Ithaca would be her plea to her father, Zeus where she states: ...my own heart is broken for Odysseus, the master mind of war, so long a castaway upon an island in the running sea; ...But such desire is in him merely to see the hearthsmoke leaping upward from his own island, that he longs to die. Are you not moved by this, Lord of Olympos? Had you no pleasure from Odysseus' offerings beside the Argive ships, on Troy's wide seaboard? O Zeus, what do you hold against him now?
...I say Antiope, daughter of Asopos. She too could boast a god for lover, having lain with Zeus and borne two sons to him: Amphion and Zethos, who founded Thebes, the upper city, and built the ancient citadel. They sheltered no life upon that plain, for all their power, without a fortress wall. These are violent images to say the least. This is just one example of how Homer tried to appeal to the masculine audience. For all of Homer's passages that were geared towards men, you have to give him credit for creating deep and strong female characters. You really cannot blame him for writing for the male audience, though. After all, he was one. From a man's point of view, they looked up to Odysseus. What testosterone driven man in 900 B.C. would not dream of captaining a ship full of warriors to the ends of the earth? Which man would not want to reap riches through war and leave behind a long trail of broken hearted beautiful women all over the globe? This was the Terminator 2 of Western Europe in 900 B.C. With all of the powerful visual images this story creates for the men, it is easy to see why they would forgive Homer his strong portrayal of women. I do not believe that all men felt the same as Homer did about women in his time. It is obvious that this epic was quite popular in its time. It has lasted 3000 years! A fine example of this poem being geared towards the men of Homer's time can be found in the following quote: This does not mean that the poem was geared towards women. It was clearly a man's story. Wild beasts and epic battles with the Kyklops are not usually geared towards the female audience. I am sure that the women of Homer's time did not want to hear of a happily married man leaving his family and winding up on a deserted island with the beautiful nymph Calypso for a year. Even while his devoted wife patien
Some common words found in the essay are:
Amphion Zethos, Western Europe, Lord Olympos, Odessey Homer, Athena Odysseus, female characters, geared towards, poem geared towards, poem geared, man's story, portrayal women, 900 bc, strength power, life homer,
Approximate Word count = 1249
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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