The Odyssey - Gender roles
The Odyssey is the product of a society in which the dominant role was played by men. In ancient Greece, just as in the whole of the ancient world, and in America and Western Europe until the last century, women occupied a subservient position. Society was organized and directed by men, and all of the most important enterprises were those which men arranged and implemented. Women were valued, but they participated in the affairs of the world only when they had the tacit or open approval and permission of the men who directed their lives. The literature of this sort of masculine society, of which the Iliad and Odyssey are examples, aptly illustrates these social conventions. The themes of these works are subjects which are of interest to men; warfare, hunting, the problems of the warrior and ruler, and so forth. That which would concern women, such as domestic affairs, is not involved in this literature, or is dealt with only casually. Keeping in mind this important attribute of epic poetry, which is the direct result of its social and intellectual environment, one cannot help noting the great difference between the Odyssey and all other epic poems. No other literary work of this period, or of a similar cultural background, gives
The nature of the events described in the Odyssey and the character of Odysseus necessitated that many women had to be present in its verses. Beyond this, however, the poet had a rather free hand in choosing how to deal with them. The women of the Odyssey could have been treated as casually and cavalierly as Andromache and Helen were in the Iliad. Homer, however, made another choice. In a way, the Odyssey is not just the tale of the wanderings of Odysseus. The poet has made it, also, into a type of descriptive catalog of women, in which he examines women of all kinds and from all backgrounds. These feminine portraits are always objective and fair, for Homer never made judgments, and each of these women has a certain appeal. It is interesting to notice, however, that the woman who is most worthy of respect and emulation is not a mortal. Homer seems to comment that no human being, limited as she was by the environment which he portrays, could de-velop herself in this fashion. His admiration for Athene is made even more evident by the fact that she, and not Penelope or one of the others, is the heroine of the poem and the sole companion and confidante of Odysseus. It is only in our modern world that women have been given the opportunity to fully utilize their talent and ability, in order to become equal
Some common words found in the essay are:
Iliad Odyssey, Iliad Homer, Athene Developing, Odyssey Greek, Finally Athene, Western Europe, Circe Calypso, , Eurycleia Mel-antho, women odyssey, homer's society, modern world,
Approximate Word count = 881
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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