Female Ambiguity:
Kirke from The Odyssey vs. Bianca from The Taming of the Shrew
Women are ambiguous characters throughout texts such as The Odyssey and The Taming of the Shrew. In these two stories, there are female characters that are deceitful and beguiling towards men. Kirke and Bianca are two comparable characters that display such behavior. I will explain how both characters display ambiguity by hiding their true nature behind actions that they wouldn’t normally take; therefore these female characters are being deceitful to those who fall for their actions.
Kirkie displays her obscure behavior at the point of The Odyssey when some of Odysseus’s crew is sent up to Kirke’s hall. When the men lay eyes on her she is weaving on her loom. Kirke’s weaving is a domesticated action to the crew of Odysseus’ men who witness it. Before the men see her the carnivorous mammals at her entryway that seem to be under her spell intimidate them. Kirke’s weaving alone is not what enticed the men to her, yet it was her singing which was described as beguiling, that made the men believe she was an angel.
“Low she sang in her beguiling voice, while on her loom she wove ambrosial fabric sheer and bright, by that craft known to the goddesses of heaven.” (Homer 171)
This action of weaving and singing gains the trust of the weary men who then wish to approach her. The sirens also sing. Somehow with female singing men lose their rational thoughts and become hypnotized by the sound. Weaving is an action used at least by one other female character, Penelope that deceives a large group of men into thinking that the female is harmless and domestic. In this story all the females that sing use it as a lure of the men and it works every time, however the waving trick didn’t work so well for Penelope and her secret of unraveling a shroud she would spend all day weaving was discovered. The crewmen in this part of the story see Kirke singing on the loom and it strikes their hearts and they seem to narrowly forget about the wolves and lions at her entrance only to see her young beautiful image as a fine woman. Polites, one of Odysseus’ crewmen broke the silence held by the men to assure them that this womanly duty Kirkie performs makes her seem harmless and that they should not hide away from her.
She is seen standing up to man and showcasing her authority when she speaks out to her father, Zeus. And although she is chastised, she does not back down because later in the text we again see her have her say when she questioned her father’s actions. Athena has respect for the cosmic order of the universe but still challenges the set perimeters in terms of divine intervention. Fond of Odysseus, Athena indirectly, directly intervened in the lives of him and his family but instead of appearing as herself, she appears as an old friend of Odysseus and “a shepherd, like a king’s son, all delicately made” (Homer 13. 281-282). A sharp contrast to the discernible interference the other goddesses are involved in, this quotation illustrates how she intervenes in Odysseus’s life in different forms which allow him to get help without outright knowing it is Athena, until when she feels it
However, his journey isn’t over yet. This last leg of Odysseus’s journey is perhaps the most important and crucial. Odysseus’s nurse and maidservant, Eurycleia is the first woman in Ithaca to know that Odysseus is back after she recognizes the scar on his leg while she is washing him. Eurycleia vows to keep his identity a secret. Odysseus’s wife, Penelope has stayed faithful to Odysseus for all the years that he was gone. Penelope was consistently unweaving her web to the delay the suitors. The reader even grows sympathetic for Penelope as “we see her struggle to make the virtuous choice about her marriage, despite pressures from her suitors, her son’s endangered situation, and her own uncertainty about Odysseus’s survival” (Foley ). Finally, Odysseus reveals his identity and Penelope is bewildered, but quickly embraces her husband after he tells her the secret of their immovable bed. It is the faithfulness of Penelope and nurse Eurycleia that insures Odysseus’s survival to the very end.
While on the way home to Ithaca, Odysseus encounters two mythological women. Odysseus first encounters two Seirenes who he is warned about by the witch goddess Circe. The Seirenes are half bird half women who sing and lure sailors to their death. Odysseus received the options from Circe of listening to the song while tied to the ship’s mast or plugging his ears with wax like the rest of his crew. While tied to the mast Odysseus chose to listen to the song of the Seirenes and longed to follow their sweet singing. Odysseus had the opportunity to leave the ship and listen to the sweet singing, however, if this was his decision he would lose his life. The Seirenes offered Odysseus a life filled with sweet song, however, Odysseus remembers the instruction and remains tied to the mast continuing home to Ithaca. Another woman in The Odyssey who offers Odysseus an opportunity to stay with her is Princess Nausikka of the Phaeacians. Nausikka aids Odysseus when he asks for help and gives him instruction abou...
The United States (U.S.) has a health care system that is much different than any other health care system in the world (Nies & McEwen, 2015). It is frequently recognized as one with most recent technological inventions, but at the same time is often criticized for being overly expensive (Nies & McEwen, 2015). In 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.) This plan was implemented in an attempt to make preventative care more affordable and accessible for all uninsured Americans (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.). Under the law, the new Patient’s Bill of Rights gives consumers the power to be in charge of their health care choices. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.).
In Homer's Odyssey, Kirke, represents the catalyst who encourages Odysseus's transformation into a mature man. Homer uses Kirke, a godly nymph who displays divine powers, to portray the harlot. After sailing away from the Laistryones, Odysseus and his crew land on Aiaia. They disembark and scavenge the island for food, but instead find the nymph in her palace. Empowered by the gods to bewitch the crew, Kirke turns Odysseus's men into swine. Homer uses the word swine to describe the soldier's subconscious state of mind after years at war that involves raping women and plundering towns. "For ten years, [they] had been in Troy, fighting a war in a he-man world, where no dialogue between men and women takes place.." (Campbell 54). Both divine and mortal, the gods immunize Odysseus by sending the messenger, Hermes, with the black root and milky white substance to neutralize Kirke's power. 'The Lady Kirke mixed me a golden cup of honey wine, adding in mischief her unholy drug" (Homer 175). Casting her spell and thinking it took, Kirke sends Odysseus to lie with his crew in the sty. "Down in the sty and snore among the rest!" (Homer 175). Kirke's brew failing, Odysseus draws his sharpened sword and in one bound places it against her throat. Kirke asserts her power and Odysseus subverts it, a tryst the gods deploy to rid Odysseus of his rogue and a...
Over the past 400 or so years since Shakespeare wrote _The Taming of the Shrew_, many writers, painters, musicians and directors have adapted and reformed this play of control and subjugation into timeless pieces of art. In _10 Things I Hate About You_ and Kiss Me Kate from two very different times in the twentieth century, and paintings of Katherina and Bianca from the late nineteenth century, the creators of these adaptations have chosen to focus on the role of the two main female characters in the play. The ideas surrounding these women have changed through the years, from Katherina and Bianca simply being young women who deviated from the norm of Shakespeare’s time to women who embody feminist ideals and stereotypes of the more modern world.
The health care system in the United States is one of the most complex forms of healthcare system. What makes the system complex is that there are multiple factors involved. For example, there are multiple players and payers involved in the system. This includes physicians, administrator of health services institutions, insurance companies, large employers and lastly the Government Shi & Singh, 2012). Each of these players and payers are involved to protect their own economic interest. Hospitals for instances, wants to maximize reimbursement from both private and public insurers. Insurance companies and managed care organizations are concerned with how they can maintain their share of the health care insurance market, while physicians seek to maximize their income and have minimal interference with the way they practice medicine (Shi & Singh, 2012). It is obvious that there is no centrality of the health care system. In other words, there is no one department or in particular government body that is unilaterally in charge of the administration of the health care system as it is in the other developed nations where they have a single payer system, which is the government. Instead, the U. S. has health system that is financed by private sectors. According to Shi and Singh,(2012), 54% of total health care expenditures is privately financed through employers , while the remaining 46% is financed by the government. Lack of centrality in monitoring the total expenditures through global budgets or control over the availability and utilization of services coupled with most hospitals and clinics now been privately owned may potential...
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