How is Penelope presented in The Penelopiad?
In Margaret Atwood's play The Penelopiad, based on Homer's epic The Odyssey, Odysseus' spouse, Penelope, is portrayed in a way we've never known her: caustic, crafty, and unflinching.
How would you describe Penelope's character?
The Odyssey's Penelope is a thinker, a person who is effective in facing her world and its problems by thinking her way out of them. She is, perhaps, even more of a thinker than her much-devising husband, as he is still, occasionally, given to “solving” his problems with brute force.
How is Penelope different in The Penelopiad?
Cosentino said that in the ancient Greek telling, Odysseus is seen as the hero, while Penelope represents loyalty, patience and modesty. In “The Penelopiad,” Penelope is seen more as autonomous, strong and capable.
Is Penelope a hero in The Penelopiad?
Penelope proves to be Odysseus's heroic equal, as through her resilient, witty and strategic actions she ensures Odysseus fighting advantages over the suitors.
What are Penelope's strengths?
Odysseus's wife and Telemachus's mother. In the beginning of the story, Penelope's most prominent qualities are passivity, loyalty, and patience (along with beauty and skill at the loom) – the age-old feminine virtues. She does very little but lie in bed and weep.
What virtue does Penelope symbolize?
The wife of the hero Odysseus* in Greek mythology, Penelope was celebrated for her faithfulness, patience, and feminine virtue.
What kind of person is Penelope in The Penelopiad?
Penelope, although not a beauty, is known for her cleverness, her devotion, and her modesty. Penelope is insecure about her looks and her ability to attract men, often comparing herself to her cousin Helen, whom she loathes. Penelope marries Odysseus at age fifteen and then returns to Ithaca with him.
Did Penelope sleep with the Suitors?
In some versions, Penelope slept with either Apollo, Hermes, or all of the suitors who came to court her in Odysseus' absence.
Is Penelope dead in penelopiad?
The story is told primarily from the perspective of Penelope, dead in the underworld, retelling her life on earth with interjecting sections from the point of view of the maids. These interjecting sections are told in a number of different forms including poetry, a trial, a play and a love song.
How is Penelope resilient?
One of the heroic qualities she shares with her husband is resilience (Foley 1978, Arthur, Thalmann, Marquardt). Penelope's resilience is not, however, limited to her weaving trick, which has postponed her remarriage while she keeps open the possibility of Odysseus' return.
Did Penelope ever wanted to tell her side of the story?
In The Penelopiad, Penelope feels compelled to tell her story because she is unsatisfied with Homer's portrayal of her and the other myths about her sleeping with the suitors and giving birth to Pan. She rejects the role of the ideal wife and admits she was just trying to survive.
What is the theme of The Penelopiad?
Class, Womanhood, and Violence Atwood's account of the events of the Odyssey through Penelope and the Maids' eyes focuses on the hardship and heartbreak of life as a woman in ancient Greece. Among these difficulties are the social and psychological pressures that women face.
How is Penelope clever in The Odyssey?
In book 2 of the Odyssey, Penelope's clever deception of the suitors is revealed. She had been using the weaving of a great funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes, as an excuse to avoid picking a new husband out of the suitors.
What character trait does Penelope demonstrate when she calls for the?
What character trait does Penelope demonstrate when she calls for the suitors to hold a contest? What other character has a similar trait? She demonstrates cleverness, like Odysseus does when he tricks and overcomes foes. She demonstrates hospitality, like the Phaeacians do when Odysseus lands on their island.
Why is Penelope admirable?
Penelope is faithful to both her husband and her idea of marriage. She believes she can belong to one man only and she remains faithful to this idea no matter what. It is also important to note that her faith makes her that courageous and wise. Like any other hero, Penelope is guided by her faith.
What kind of wife is Penelope?
Some critics dismiss Penelope's role in The Odyssey as a paragon of marital fidelity — a serious and industrious character, a devoted wife and mother, but one who lacks the fascination and zest for life that some of Homer's immortal women display. However, Penelope is not a pasteboard figure.
Penelope
Penelope is the main narrator of the novel. Known from The Odyssey as Odysseus's faithful wife, she remained true to him despite all his years away from home. But Penelope has her own version of events.
Odysseus
Odysseus is Penelope's husband and the hero of The Odyssey. Due to the exploits recorded in that epic tale, he has gained a reputation for telling stories, cheating, tricking, and lying. He often gets what he wants or escapes a dangerous situation by cleverly tricking an adversary.
12 maids
Ancient Greek dramas often use a chorus—a group of actors speaking or signing together—as a way to comment on the events of the play. In this novel, the 12 maids who were hanged by Telemachus fulfill this dramatic role. They describe their childhoods as Penelope describes hers and their relationships with men as she describes her marriage.
Helen
Helen, often known as Helen of Troy, is Penelope's cousin and the wife of Menelaus. When she runs off with the Trojan prince Paris, she sets off a chain of events that affect countless others, but she takes no responsibility for it. Helen is beautiful, and she knows it.
Telemachus
Telemachus, Odysseus and Penelope's son, is just a year old when Odysseus leaves to fight in the Trojan War. As an only child and a prince, he leads a privileged childhood and shows an affinity for spinning tales like his father.
Penelope
Penelope is the protagonist of the Penelopiad. She is from Sparta. She is royalty: her father is King Icarius of Sparta and her mother is a Naiad (water deity). Penelope appears in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which recount the events of the Trojan war and Odysseus's famed journey back to Ithaca following the war.
Odysseus
Odysseus is Penelope's husband. Odysseus is the son of King Laertes of Ithaca and Anticlea (whose grandfather was Hermes, the messenger of the gods). Odysseus becomes the king of Ithaca when he returns from the Trojan war.
Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks (and the other eleven maids)
Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks is one of Penelope's twelve young maids in Ithaca. They spy on the suitors for Penelope and help her unweave her shroud every night. When Odysseus returns from his journey, he has Telemachus kill them for sleeping with the suitors.
King Icarius
King Icarius of Sparta is Penelope's father. When Penelope was very young, he ordered her to be thrown into the sea.
Penelope's mother (unnamed)
Penelope's mother is a Naiad (a divine freshwater spirit). She is a flighty mother who is not very attentive to Penelope—she would much prefer to be in the water than to be raising her child on land. Penelope notes that her mother "stopped swimming around like a porpoise long enough to attend [her] wedding" (43).
Helen
Helen is Penelope's cousin. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, who conceived and gave birth to Helen while she was in the form of a swan. Helen's father is also King Tyndareus, Leda's husband.
Autolycus
Autolycus is Odysseus's grandfather. He is known as a liar and a cheat. As Penelope notes, he "was reputed never to have won anything fairly in his life" (31).
Who hanged Penelope?
The alternating narratives between Penelope and twelve of her most trusted maids, hanged by Odysseus upon his return to the palace, reveal the harsh differences between Penelope’s life as queen and the experiences of those in her service.
Why does Penelope accept the rape of servants?
Instead of regretting the inherent inequality that leaves her maids powerless when raped by the suitors, Penelope accepts the rape of servants as a common social practice. In fact, she even explains that male guests expected unhindered access to the servants as part of their visits to other palaces.
Who was the singing chorus in The Penelopiad?
The novel recounts the story of Odysseus in the voices of Penelope and a singing chorus of twelve maids who were killed by Odysseus for sleeping with the suitors during his absence. The Penelopiad exposed me to a feminist perspective on such a male-dominated text.
Who is Odysseus' wife?
Throughout The Odyssey, Penelope, Odysseus' wife, is characterized as constant, virtuous, and patient. She’s seen as the epitome of faithful wifeliness for her refusal to marry a suitor and for her belief that Odysseus will return.
What is the story of Odysseus?
The epic recounts the adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus as he journeys home after the Trojan War, including battles with mythical creatures, cunning deceptions of native populations, and lots of sexual activity with all manner of beautiful goddesses. Throughout The Odyssey, Penelope, Odysseus' wife, is characterized as constant, virtuous, ...
Who is Penelope's maid?
Actoris is Penelope's maid who comes with her to Ithaca after she marries Odysseus.
Who is Medon in the book?
Medon is a herald who informs Penelope that the suitors are plotting to ambush her son, Telemachus.
Who is Helen's husband?
Menelaus is Helen's husband, and his quest to bring her back from Troy is the reason Odysseus must leave to fight in the Trojan War.
Who is the blind seer Odysseus speaks with?
Teiresias a blind seer whom Odysseus speaks with in the land of the dead.
Who is the main narrator in Odysseus?
Penelope is the primary narrator and protagonist, who tells her story from the afterlife. When she was alive, she was the faithful wife of Odysseus. Read More
Who became Helen's lover?
The Trojan Paris became Helen's lover and ran off with her, setting off the Trojan War.
Who is Helen's father?
Zeus is the ruler of the Greek gods and rumored to be Helen's true father.
What is the Penelopiad?
LC Class. PR9199.3.A8 P46 2005. The Penelopiad is a novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was published in 2005 as part of the first set of books in the Canongate Myth Series where contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, ...
What is the relationship between Helen and Penelope?
The Penelopiad' s antagonistic relationship between Penelope and Helen is similar to the relationships of women in Atwood's previous novels: Elaine and Cordelia in Cat's Eye, and Iris and Laura in The Blind Assassin, and follows Atwood's doubt of an amicable universal sisterhood.
What is the difference between the Odyssey and the Penelopiad?
According to Penelope in The Penelopiad, Odysseus was a liar who drunkenly fought a one-eyed bartender then boasted it was a giant cannibalistic cyclops. Homer portrays Penelope as loyal, patient, and the ideal wife, as he contrasts her to Clytemnestra who killed Agamemnon upon his return from Troy. In The Penelopiad, Penelope feels compelled to tell her story because she is unsatisfied with Homer's portrayal of her and the other myths about her sleeping with the suitors and giving birth to Pan. She rejects the role of the ideal wife and admits she was just trying to survive. The Odyssey makes the maids into traitors who consort with the suitors. From the maids' perspective, they were innocent victims, used by Penelope to spy, raped and abused by the suitors, and then murdered by Odysseus and Telemachus. Atwood shows the truth occupies a third position between the myths and the biased points of view.
What are the maids' roles in the Odyssey?
The maids also deliver their version of narrative justice on Odysseus and Telemachus, who ordered and carried out their execution , and on Penelope who was complicit in their killing. The maids do not have the same sanctioned voice as Penelope and are relegated to unauthoritative genres, though their persistence eventually leads to more valued cultural forms. Their testimony, contrasted with Penelope's excuses while condemning Helen, demonstrates the tendency of judicial processes to not act upon the whole truth. When compared with the historical record, dominated by the stories in the Odyssey, the conclusion, as one academic states, is that the concepts of justice and penalties are established by "who has the power to say who is punished, whose ideas count", and that "justice is underwritten by social inequalities and inequitable power dynamics".
What are the themes of the novella The Robber Bride?
The novella's central themes include the effects of story-telling perspectives, double standards between the sexes and the classes, and the fairness of justice. Atwood had previously used characters and storylines from Greek mythology in fiction such as her novel The Robber Bride, short story The Elysium Lifestyle Mansions, and poems "Circe: Mud Poems" and "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing." She used Robert Graves ' The Greek Myths and E. V. Rieu and D. C. H. Rieu 's version of the Odyssey to prepare for this novella.
Who was unaware of A D Hope's earlier intense moral questioning of the story of Odysseus?
Atwood seems to have been unaware of A D Hope 's earlier intense moral questioning of the story of Odysseus hanging the maids. In Hope's 1960s poem "The End of the Journey" Penelope and Odysseus pass an unhappy night after the slaughter of the suitors and the maids, and wake to a scene of horror: "Each with her broken neck, each with a blank,/Small strangled face, the dead girls in a row /Swung as the cold airs moved them to and fro".
How many chapters are there in The Penelopiad?
A court trial acted out by the maids, The Penelopiad, pp. 179–180, 182. The novella is divided into 29 chapters with introduction, notes, and acknowledgments sections. Structured similarly to a classical Greek drama, the storytelling alternates between Penelope's narrative and the choral commentary of the twelve maids.
What does Penelope lack in the book?
Although the suitors abuse an important social tradition of hospitality, Penelope lacks the natural, social, and familial protections that would enable her to remove them from her house. Her son, Telemachus, has neither the maturity nor the strength to expel the invaders.
What is Penelope's sense of destiny?
She is a complicated woman with a wry sense of destiny who weaves her plots as deftly as she weaves a garment. Penelope is in a very dangerous situation when the suitors begin invading her house and asking — and then demanding — her hand in marriage.
How long did Penelope work on the shroud?
For three years, Penelope worked at weaving a shroud for the eventual funeral of her father-in-law, Laertes. She claimed that she would choose a husband as soon as the shroud was completed. By day, the queen, a renowned weaver, worked on a great loom in the royal halls.
Is Penelope a pasteboard?
However, Penelope is not a pasteboard figure.
