Penelope: a Woman of Many Trades

In Homer's The Odyssey, Penelope is depicted as a woman of many trades. She can be described as the "ideal" woman. She is a wife, a mother, a heroine, and a queen. She has great willpower and is very resourceful. She is loyal, hospitable, and has pride in her home and family. She can ultimately been seen as a pillar that will not crumble, no matter how hard the earth shakes.

Throughout this epic, Penelope is faced with many obstacles that try and break her down. One main obstacle is that of Odysseus' absence. This obstacle shows her ultimate loyalty to Odysseus. Odysseus, her husband has been gone for twenty years. During this time suitors have overcome her house. These suitors are disrespectful and show no regard for Penelope. These suitors want to court her, but are sleeping around with the maids and destroying everything that Odysseus had worked so hard to make. They try to get Penelope to make her choice as to which of the suitors she wants to re-marry since they feel that it is hopeless and Odysseus will never return home. She keeps putting them off because in the back of her head she still holds hope that Odysseus will return home and reclaim what was once his. These suitors are very potent and putting them off is a far from easy task. Penelope is creative and goes to great lengths to delay marriage to one of the suitors. She declares that she cannot marry until she has woven a funeral blanket for her husband. What the suitors fail to realize is that at night she took out all that she had weaved during the day. Once the secret gets out that she has been unraveling what she had weaved, the suitors start to become pushier and they feel aggrieved that she made promises and they are getting nowhere. She still feels the nee...

... middle of paper ...

...This is a great power and she is very careful to preserve what is left of the political structure. Penelope holds strong to the temptations of all the suitors. Penelope still has clear judgment and can maintain in charge of the entire on goings in Ithaca. After twenty years most women would have given up hope and remarried. Penelope shows that she is loyal and that she still has faith in her husband. Though her husband may not have been faithful to her while he was away, she stills feels the need to remain a loyal companion.

Some may say that she was just a hopeless wife, but not many other women would be able to juggle suitors, a son, and the power of Ithaca by themselves. The qualities and traits that she possesses make her an "ideal" woman. If she had not maintained faith and had such high morals and values, then Odysseus would not have had a home to return to.