Servant Women In Homer's The Odyssey

In Homer’s The Odyssey, there are many types of characters. Some good and some bad. There are many questions that are raised throughout the story such as: How will Odysseus get home, will he get home in time to help Penelope, will Telemachus find his father, and one other that is very important, can women be trusted? This question is initially brought about with Odysseus’ run in with Agamemnon in Hades and it lingers throughout the story. There are multiple women in The Odyssey and they all have different characteristics, but for the most part, they all show that women cannot be trusted. When put to the test, they show their true colors and reveal that they are only worried about their own interests. In the end, it comes back to bite some of

them and it is not a pretty site.

The servant women are a prime example of why women can’t be trusted. Their job is to take care of the suitors while they are in Odysseus’ home. They are given strict instructions not to fraternize with them and to simply do their job, but that is not what happens. They end up having relationships with the suitors and Telemachus and Penelope can no longer trust them to do the right thing. One maid even betrays Penelope when she finds out that Penelope has been unraveling the shroud at night. She goes to the suitors and tells them what Penelope has been doing. This puts more pressure on Penelope to choose a suitor. Some might ask why the servant women chose to not be trustworthy and it is simple. After a while, a lot of people thought Odysseus was not going to return. Their motive was clearly for pleasure. The suitors were going to fulfill their needs so why stay faithful to Odysseus and Penelope? That says a lot about their character as well. They must not think very highly of themselves so being trustful must not matter very much to them. Lastly, they are just servant women. This was not a very enjoyable position, so their situation was not

very good. They must have thought why not make the best of it, and just decided to do what they wanted to do. But, in the end Odysseus shows them the price of being untrustworthy. When he killed the suitors he had the servant women throw out their bodies and clean the house where they had been killed. Telemachus then ultimately showed them the price of their sins, “I won’t allow a clean death for these women-the suitor’s sluts-who have heaped reproaches upon my own head and upon my mother’s…So too these women, their heads hanging in a row, the cable looped around each of their necks. It was a piteous death” (22.485-496). There was no remorse from Odysseus or his son for what the women had done because they had proved to not be trusted and that was the consequence of their actions.
When it comes to a marriage, trust is one of the most important things to keep the marriage alive.

That is why the relationship between Menelaus and Helen is very strained. Helen most definitely could not be trusted. She proved this when it came time for her to make the decision of whether to go with Paris to Troy or not. She could have stayed faithful to her husband, but she chose not too and then tried to get the Greeks killed when they came to retrieve her. She also showed that she could not be trusted when Telemachus came to Lacedaemon and she drugged him and her husband, “But Helen, child of Zeus, had other ideas. She threw a drug into the wine bowl they were drinking from” (4.230-233). She did this to shake their memories, but it did not work. Menelaus knew the truth and he called her out on her lies. He knew that she could not be trusted and he didn’t want the truth to be obscured. Helen did not have to drug them, but she did because she did not want to be looked down upon. After all, she was the soul cause of the Trojan War and she might not have wanted to relive that time or she might have wanted them to remember it a different way because she felt so badly about it. Either way, she proved untrustworthy just like the other

women.
Penelope was dealing with the constant struggle of not knowing what to do throughout the entire story. She wanted to stay faithful to Odysseus and keeps a trick going with the suitors to remain faithful, but she is eventually found out. The suitors realize that she has been fooling them all along and they are furious. Penelope obviously could no longer be trusted because she had been lying to them for so long. Telemachus shows that he could not really trust her either. When he was getting ready to leave to go find Odysseus he shows his doubt for her when he speaks to Eurecleia and says, “But swear you won’t say anything to my mother for a dozen days or so,” (2.397-398). He knew Penelope would be selfish and want him to stay in Ithaca. He does not trust her to let him do the right thing for their family so he makes sure that she does not know he is leaving. She also proves herself untrustworthy when Odysseus arrived back home. Odysseus was already anxious to see her because of what Agamemnon said, and how Penelope reacted just made his arrival even more intense. When she tried to trick him with their marriage bed, that was the biggest indicator that he should not trust her. If she was a trustful wife, she would have just told him her concerns, but she used trickery instead. She used their marriage bed, of all things, to do so. Penelope said, “Nurse, bring the bed out from the master bedroom. The bedstead he made himself, and spread it for him with fleeces and blankets and silky coverlets,” (23.184-186). Then the book goes on to say, “She was testing her husband,” (23.187) This simple trickery to test him brought Odysseus to tears. If she was truly a trustful woman, she would have just welcomed him back with open arms, but just like the rest, she proved that she was not.
These characters are just some examples that show women cannot be trusted. They had many opportunities to go different directions and prove that they could, but they let their pride or their own wants get in the way of that. No matter how many times these women tried to stay loyal or tried to do the right thing, they could never put aside their own desires. This just goes to show that Homer was trying to show his readers that in the end, women should not and cannot be trusted.