Athena's Role In The Odyssey

Women in Ancient Greece were often seen as inferior and unintelligent, they quite rarely made impacting decisions. Women were not allowed to own property or have a job that could earn them real money, they legally belonged to their father or husband. Despite the lack of power women had in Ancient Greece, Homer did not take that into account while writing. In The Odyssey, women are critical to Odysseus’ trials, and successes.
Athena is pivotal in assisting Odysseus by aiding in his struggle to return home and in Ithaca. She supports Odysseus throughout the epic. Athena first helps by explaining Odysseus’ predicament to others on Mount Olympus. Athena begs “Olympian Zeus” to “care for him in [his] lofty heart” (Homer 1.72,73). Athena knows that if she is able to convince the other gods and goddess to be on Odysseus’ side it would positively impact his
She holds him captive on Ogygia, for “seven endless years [he] remained there” (Homer 7.298). After Odysseus lost his crew, Calypso finds him and brings him to her island, holding him there against his will and delaying his return home by many years. While Odysseus is there Calypso causes him nothing but pain, “all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches,/wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish” (Homer 5.173-174). At this point Odysseus truly misses home and his family, and Calypso only makes it worse. Even after seeing the misery Odysseus is in, and being asked to let him free by Zeus, Calypso still attempts to make him stay. Calypso told Odysseus to “preside in [her] house with [her]/and be immortal” then tries to make him pick her over Penelope by saying how hard it is for “mortal woman to rival immortal goddess” (Homer 5.230-231,235). She offers Odysseus immortality so he would choose to stay with her rather than returning home to his wife. Calypso is very harmful to Odysseus and his expedition