Penelope's Loyalty In The Odyssey

A man by the name of Heinrich Himmer once said, “My honor is my loyalty.” This meant that one can only have honor if they are a loyal person. In the Odyssey, Odysseus knew that his men would die. Most people would give up knowing this. However, Odysseus remained loyal to his men, hoping he could still get them home. He also remained loyal to his wife, Penelope, as he always wanted to get home and return to her. Penelope was fiercely loyal to him. She realized that he might die and never return. However, she still waited for him. She waited for twenty years and always rejected the suitors. Even though their loyalties resided in generally different places, these two characters were excellent examples of people, whose loyalty gave them hope.

She never lost hope of Odysseus returning home. In fact, she waited for him for twenty years. Most people would have lost hope and wouldn’t have remained loyal to Odysseus. However, she did. She knew he might never return, and it would have been easy for her to give in to the suitors. But, instead, she always rejected them, because the only person she wanted was Odysseus, and only Odysseus. For example, she kept tricking the suitors because she knew that the only person who would be able to foresee and see through her tricks were Odysseus. As an example, she held the archery contest because she knew that the only person that would be able to string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axhandle sockets was Odysseus. Another example was the bed. After Odysseus won the competition, Penelope had one last trick to confirm this guy was Odysseus. She told him that she would have the bed moved to the hall. However, the bed couldn’t be moved because it was built off of a tree and was the center of the palace. Odysseus knew this and got outraged, thinking that she moved the bed. That’s when Penelope knew that it really was Odysseus. On page 1045, as Penelope was hugging Odysseus, Odysseus thinks, “Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of longing mounted and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful in his