Double Standard for Women of Homers Odyssey Essay -- Homer Odyssey wo

Double Standard for Women of the Odyssey Odysseus plans to tiptoe back into his hall through various schemes, one of which is to become beneficial and cordial to the maidservants. With this motivation, he offers to guard the hearth so that the fire wont dwindle, but the response he receives is more than unwelcoming. Melantho, a beneficiary of Penelope, spurns him saying You must be crazy, punch drunk, you old goat. Instead of going out to find a smithyor a tavern benchyou stay place your oar in, amid all our men. Numbskull non to be scared The wine you drank has clogged your brain, or are you always this way, boasting like a fool? Or swallow you lost your mind because you beat that tramp, that Iros? Look out, or someone better may get up and give you a good knocking nigh the ears to send you out all bloody. (18.405-15). Unexpectedly and unconventional for his character, Odysseus says One minute let me tell Telemakhos how you talk in hall, you slut hell cut your mu nition and legs off (18.416-20). This hard shot took the womens breath away and drove them quaking to their rooms, as though knives were behind they felt he spoke the truth (18.421-23). From the lieu of Melantho, her reason to believe the hungry bellied pariah, Odysseus, seems unclear. There seems to be a lapse in her reasoning. Since the old beggars arrival at Odysseus estate, Telemakhosnot ever publicly acknowledging the hunched-over mans entryappears to wholly neglect him. Intimidated by the suitors death threats and revealing Odysseus identity, the only way out for Telemakhos, ... ... Athens, 5-16. Diana Buitron-Oliver and Beth Cohen, Between Skylla and Penelope feminine Characters of the Odyssey in Archaic and Classical Greek Art, pp. 29-58. Female Representations and Interpreting the Odyssey, by Seth Schein, pp. 17-27. Griffin, Jasper. Homer on Life and Death, 1980, Clarendon Press. Richard Brilliant, Kirkes Men Swine and Sweethearts, pp. 165-73. Helene Foley, Penelope as moral Agent, in Beth Cohen, ed., The Distaff Side (Oxford 1995), pp. 93-115. The Odyssey, History, and Women, by A. J. Graham, pp. 3-16 Lillian Doherty, Siren Songs Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor 1995), esp. chapter 1. Marilyn Arthur Katz, Penelopes Renown Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey (Princeton 1991). Nancy Felson-Rubin, Regarding Penelope From Courtship to Poetics (Princeton 1994).