Character Of Penelope In Homer's Odyssey

Upon hearing the plots of the suitors against Telemachus, Penelope descends to the hall with the suitors. She becomes furious at all the suitors for threatening her son, yet mostly blaming Antinous. Thereupon, she hollers at Antinous. In all of her anger she calls out, “You, Antinous! Violent, vicious, scheming—/” (Od. 16. 463). Unable to control herself, she has an outburst before all the onlooking suitors. While yelling, Penelope portrays her wisdom by guilting Antinous. She reminds him of his debt to her family by declaring, “Don’t you know how your father fled here once?” (Od. 16. 470). Next she stresses Odysseus’s kindness with Antinous’s father. She claims that when mobs want to destroy Antinous’s father “Odysseus [holds] them back, he