Double Standards In The Odyssey

In these last books of The Odyssey there is a theme of double standards, Odysseus is able to get away with anything. In the beginning of these books Penelope finally decides to pick a suitor to marry even though she does not really want to do this, she even prays for her own death. Her method of choosing a competition: whoever can string and shot Odysseus’ bow, that only he is strong enough to shoot, through twelve axes wins her hand in marriage. When Odysseus goes to tell her his story, still disguised as the beggar, his old nurse discovers who he is. She finds out while washing his feet, she sees his scar. Odysseus then threatens to kill her, when he kills all the other women, if she revels him. Odysseus and Telemachus set a trap for the suitors. They hide all the weapons, the only one left out is Odysseus’ bow. Once the men are drunk and the Penelope is gone to her room, the slaughter starts. Odysseus shots the bow through the axes and then shoots dead the leader of the suitors, Antinous. He then proceeds to kill all the other suitors with the help of his son, the swine herder, and the cow herder, despite the suiters offering to pay him back for the goods they had used. He is killing them for invading his home yet, when he invaded the Cyclops home and the Cyclops tried to kill him, he stabbed him in the eye. In the very end of the slaughter the
Odysseus is also seen as great, because he never let any of the women he slept with while away win his heart. Yet if Penelope had remained faithful to him only in her heart, he probably would have killed her along with the maids that slept with the