Representation Of Women In The Odyssey Essay

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The portrayal of women in The Odyssey is represented by both divinities and mortals that influence men in a particular way. Prominent examples include: Calypso, Circe , as well as Penelope. Although women held an entirely different position in society compared to men, both divinities and mortals alike held a certain field of influence and power; they simply exert it in ways of temptation, trickery, and deceit that eluded the men of the story.


The demonstration of women using tempation to influence men is clearly represented through Odysseus’s time spent with Calypso. “Upon her hearthstone a great fire blazing/ sented the farthest shores with cedar smoke and smoke/ of thyme, and singing high and low/ in her sweet voice, before her loom a …show more content…

This form of trickery is best exemplified through the ingenious actions of Odysseus’s wife Penelope. Since the almost twenty years that Odysseus has been on his journey many presume him dead and therefore many suitors pursue their love interest in the beautiful Penelope. Yet this feeling is not mutual and Penelope uses deceit to trick the suitors. “So she spoke, and the proud heart in us was persuaded. Thereafter in the daytime she would weave at her great loom, but in the night she would have torches set by, and undo it. So for three years she was secret in her design”(Homer). The promise that she would pick one of the suitors if Odysseus did not return after and she had finished the rug was a clever use of deceit. The fact that she did not want to marry one of the suitors demonstrates a want, the cleverness of her deceit shows the immense power a woman has over men through the cleverness of her plot to trick the men. This use of deceit continues with the return of Odysseus. Penelope devised a test with a premeditated result. The test was for a man to string Odysseus’s bow then shoot an arrow through 12 tiny gates. This ingenuousness is used to obtain control over the men, yet the challenge is unfair it accomplishes the motive of Penelope, and whether expected or by luck she embraces with Odysseus when discovered from the

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