Servant Women In Homer's The Odyssey

In Homer’s The Odyssey, there are many types of characters. Some good and some bad. There are many questions that are raised throughout the story such as: How will Odysseus get home, will he get home in time to help Penelope, will Telemachus find his father, and one other that is very important, can women be trusted? This question is initially brought about with Odysseus’ run in with Agamemnon in Hades and it lingers throughout the story. There are multiple women in The Odyssey and they all have different characteristics, but for the most part, they all show that women cannot be trusted. When put to the test, they show their true colors and reveal that they are only worried about their own interests. In the end, it comes back to bite some of

The servant women are a prime example of why women can’t be trusted. Their job is to take care of the suitors while they are in Odysseus’ home. They are given strict instructions not to fraternize with them and to simply do their job, but that is not what happens. They end up having relationships with the suitors and Telemachus and Penelope can no longer trust them to do the right thing. One maid even betrays Penelope when she finds out that Penelope has been unraveling the shroud at night. She goes to the suitors and tells them what Penelope has been doing. This puts more pressure on Penelope to choose a suitor. Some might ask why the servant women chose to not be trustworthy and it is simple. After a while, a lot of people thought Odysseus was not going to return. Their motive was clearly for pleasure. The suitors were going to fulfill their needs so why stay faithful to Odysseus and Penelope? That says a lot about their character as well. They must not think very highly of themselves so being trustful must not matter very much to them. Lastly, they are just servant women. This was not a very enjoyable position, so their situation was not

That is why the relationship between Menelaus and Helen is very strained. Helen most definitely could not be trusted. She proved this when it came time for her to make the decision of whether to go with Paris to Troy or not. She could have stayed faithful to her husband, but she chose not too and then tried to get the Greeks killed when they came to retrieve her. She also showed that she could not be trusted when Telemachus came to Lacedaemon and she drugged him and her husband, “But Helen, child of Zeus, had other ideas. She threw a drug into the wine bowl they were drinking from” (4.230-233). She did this to shake their memories, but it did not work. Menelaus knew the truth and he called her out on her lies. He knew that she could not be trusted and he didn’t want the truth to be obscured. Helen did not have to drug them, but she did because she did not want to be looked down upon. After all, she was the soul cause of the Trojan War and she might not have wanted to relive that time or she might have wanted them to remember it a different way because she felt so badly about it. Either way, she proved untrustworthy just like the other