Penelope's Role In The Odyssey

Although The Odyssey by the Greek poet Homer is very much an epic tale of a man’s heroic quest, women play an incredibly large role. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus who waited twenty years for him to return home to her. What Penelope did was to show that when a man and a woman are faithful to one another, things will work out for the best. One important role was that she anchored the kingship of Ithaca. At the time of the Trojan war, kings were determined by a matrilineal scheme. Penelope was the queen and Odysseus became king by marrying her. If Penelope were to give up on Odysseus, then the man she married would become king of Ithaca. The suitors were hoping she would choose one of them, but she didn’t. Homer implies that Penelope was a
For example, if Penelope chose a husband from one of the suitors, her new husband would be king, he would then take care of her and kill Odysseus if he returned. Odysseus also could have stayed with Calypso forever, but since Penelope and Odysseus shared a familial love for one another, she confounded the suitors, and he came home to her. Same thing could be said for Sita when she was held as a prisoner at Ravana’s palace. Even when Ravana expressed his desire for her and tried to seduce her with his all of his glamour and material objects, Sita refused his advances and struggled to maintain her chastity; which severely shapes Rama’s fate and drives him towards defeating the evil and reuniting with his wife. While it could be possible that there were women like Penelope and Sita at some point in Greek and Indian antiquity, it is more likely that the authors of the poems created in those characters their idea of the perfect women. In those characters, the authors made the perfect counter-balance for their husbands; strong but chaste women who would remain faithful to their husbands and their