Bias In The Odyssey

When stories are told, no matter who the narrator is, their testimonies always differ from the truth. We see this in eyewitness accounts of crimes where witnesses overwhelmingly fail to accurately recount events. We also see this in stories, specifically, ones told in the first person where the narrator tells a story from their point of view and inject their own personal biases in the process often leaving the audience pondering what the truth is. Margaret Atwood addresses the issues of different perspectives telling different stories that are brought up by Homer’s Odyssey in The Penelopiad. The book illustrates just how different the same story can be told from different perspectives and the issues it may cause. The polarizing, bias and flawed
The first person perspective is limited and often times truths will be stretched and personal biases will be present in their testimonies. This idea can best be summed up by literary critic, M.H Abrams, who wrote in his 1957 book, A Glossary of Literary Terms, that the first person narrative, “limits the matter of the narrative to what the first-person narrator knows, experiences, infers, or can find out by talking to other characters” (Abrams 233). The limited nature of the first person means that the entire story cannot be told from just one perspective. It is ironic that Penelope chooses to berate her husband for being a liar and questioning the legitimacy of her story when her own narrative is just as dubious. Odysseus and Penelope are what Abrams would call a “fallible or unreliable narrator” (Abrams, 235). These types of narrators are ones whose “perception, interpretation, and evaluation of the matters he or she narrates do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by the author.” Penelope’s biases are prevalent throughout the text. After being thrown into the sea by her father, she became unable to fully trust anyone and saw people only for their flaws such as Odysseus lies and Menelaus’s “very loud voice” (Atwood, 34). Her reliability is constantly in question, especially due to her personal vendetta against Helen, who she claims ruined her life by taking away her husband. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between the truth and hyperbole in Penelope’s narration. The bias Penelope has against Helen is blatant and bitter. She is deeply jealous of Helen who was “...much in demand.” what she, “never got summed much by magicians” (Atwood, 20). Penelope is hurt by the idea that she has been constantly overshadowed by Helen, in life and in death. Due to this jealousy,