Character of Penelope in Homers Odyssey Essays -- Homer, Odyssey Essa

The Character of Penelope in The Odyssey "My lady, there is no man in the wide world who could find fault with you. For your fame has reached broad heaven itself, like that of some illustrious king."(Page 289,Book 19, The Odyssey) Penelope played one of the most vital roles in Homer's timeless classic ‘The Odyssey’, as both Odysseus's patient and loving wife and as the Queen of Ithaca. Her great love for Odysseus is most powerfully shown with her persistence in waiting nineteen years for her husband to return over the ‘wine dark sea’ rather than losing all hope and marrying another. Penelope has a strong and constant character, and her personality changes very little throughout ‘The Odyssey’. Since there are so few mortal women featured in The Odyssey, Penelope can be perhaps seen as an ideal figure to represent all noblewomen within the Greek world. Although women were to the most part seen as possessions they could still be highly respec... ...assical Greek Art," pp. 29-58. Richard Brilliant, "Kirke's Men: Swine and Sweethearts," pp. 165-73. Helene Foley, "Penelope as Moral Agent," in Beth Cohen, ed., The Distaff Side (Oxford 1995), pp. 93-115. Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Marilyn Arthur Katz, Penelope's Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey (Princeton 1991). Nancy Felson-Rubin, Regarding Penelope: From Courtship to Poetics (Princeton 1994). Â