Penelope shows psychological ambivalence towards Odysseus' homecoming. On one hand, her unconscious desires are for Odysseus to return home, while on the other hand, her psyche feels the need to be free of him. She is unconsciously plagued to serve her duties as a faithful wife. Her thought process is revealed when, in Book Twenty, she wakes up from sleep and begs the gods to kill her because she would rather die than have to marry a suitor.

"Artemis-- goddess, daughter of noble Zeus, if only/you'd whip an arrow through my breast and tear my life out,/ now, at once! ...Just so/ may the gods who rule Olympus blot me out! / Artemis with your glossy braids, come shoot me dead--so I can plunge beneath this loathsome earth/ with the image of Odysseus vivid in m

This was her latest masterpiece of guile: / she set up a great loom in the royal halls/ and she began to weave, and the weaving finespun, / the yarns endless, and she would lead us on: 'Young men, / my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more, / go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until/ I can finish off this web...' (24.139-145)

Penelope presents a different picture of herself, tarnishing this Homeric image when she sympathizes with Helen's infidelity towards Menelaus. She claims that Helen would not have run off with Paris, had she known the consequences. In reality, though, Helen ran off with Paris out of sheer desire, being completely ignorant of the trouble that it could have caused because of the war-like Acheaens. Penelope shows her sympathy, if not support, for Helen when she says,

Penelope's weaving of the shroud is typical of many of her actions that she uses to vacillate between buying time until Odysseus' return and holding the focus of the suitors. She speaks of her longing for Odysseus in reference to the shroud, reinforcing her faithfulness to her husband, when she says to Odysseus as the beggar, "I yearn for Odysseus, always, my heart pines away. / They [the suitors] rush the marriage on, and I spin out my wiles." (19.151-152) On the surface, it seems as though her intent is to weave to prolong the period before Odysseus' homecoming in order to avoid marriage to one of the suitors.

Conversely, Penelope's dreams reveal her desire to keep the suitors in the palace, so that she can lure them. Her psychological inclination to retain the suitors is clearly depicted in Book Nineteen in her dream about geese. It foreshadows the suitors being killed by Odysseus in which the suitors are metaphorically represented as a flock of geese who are killed by an eagle (Odysseus). Penelope shows her emotional connection to the geese when she speaks of how she loves to watch them and weeps when they are killed. She says, "I keep twenty geese in the house, from the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Argos Zeus's, King Odysseus, Odysseus Penelope, Book Twenty, Tyndareus Clytemnestra--/, Odyssey Penelope, Odysseus Agamemnon's, Book Nineteen, Perplexing Persona, Conversely Penelope's, traditional homeric, odysseus' return, penelope's weaving, penelope's weaving shroud, / suitors, towards odysseus', loyal wife, weaving shroud, odysseus' homecoming, leading suitors, killed eagle,
Approximate Word count = 1349
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)