We often have a tendency to look for the patterns and meanings that fit our existing worldview when we approach a narrative. Likewise, many scholars approach the body of Ancient texts surrounding the Trojan War as a mirror of contemporary culture: the circumstances and conflicts depicted are seen through the lens of our current social standards, or they are seen as the origin of our society and its literary tradition altogether. This trend is especially prevalent in the attempts of feminist scholars to apply methods of criticism that have been adapted for the specific contexts of the present. By developing critiques of the Homeric tradition without a sustained focus on the less salient cultural factors and traditions that women navigated in Ancient Greece, we efface a reading of these texts that reveals the power that these women yielded. By outlining some basic feminist perspectives on the body of literature surrounding the Trojan War, I intend to reveal the prevalence of victim narratives that actually undermine the intended project of recuperating women’s agency. I will also analyze Penelope’s role in the Odyssey in an attempt to place her in the context in which it was written, so as to establish a reading of her character that is attentive to her strengths in the face of hardship and inequality.
The Homeric tradition has been approached through women’s perspectives for several centuries, yielding a variety of unique and insightful perspectives on the significance of these Ancient texts. While this body of literature is far too expansive to approach at the moment, it is possible to conceptually group it into two core perspectives: that of feminist critique, which navigates male-authored texts, and gyno-criticism, which works with texts that have been authored by women (Ebbott). Gyno-criticism has led to the publication of several revisions of the classic Trojan War story (for example, Margaret Atwood’s “The Penelopiad”) that have been authored by women. Feminist critique, on the other hand, has given birth to a variety of perspectives regarding women’s lives as told in the Homeric tradition.
One of the most prevalent feminist criticisms of the Iliad and Odyssey pertains to their perspective: both are told from a man’s point of view (Homer and Lombardo, “Iliad” and “Odyssey”). These scholars argue that such an orientation towards the story deprives women of a critical voice in the narrative structure of the play, effectively eliminating the political value of women’s perspectives (Smith). Many of these scholars are quick to point out that such a narrow telling of the Trojan War story often leaves very few complex roles for women, reducing them to simple archetypal characters like the devoted mother or the seductress. This criticism is especially insightful given its prominence in the literature surrounding the Homeric epics: many sources hone in on Penelope and Helen as mirror images, lauding Penelope’s timeless devotion to her missing husband (“Penelope and Her Impact on Greek Art and Culture”).
Thus, many established feminist scholars tend to rush to defend stories like that are either written by women or told from the perspective of women. One such work, The Trojan Women, tells the story of the violence and pain that the women of Troy endured after its defeat (Euripides). While initially shocking in its intensity, many find this display of traumatic experience emblematic of a more sensitive account of the dirty underside of war (Dué). However, such a reading reflects the lack of awareness for the contextual relationship between Euripides and his audience. By applying a universal frame that privileges the presence of women’s perspectives at all costs, such a reading ultimately effaces a nuanced understanding of the social significance of The Trojan Women. While Dué correctly points out that such a story works to create moments of identification between Euripides’ Athenian audience and the victims of war, her analysis stops short of considering the significance of such an identification. It is quite likely that such an identification within the audience would facilitate the expansion of Athenian war-making capacity, lest Athenian women face the same fate. The effects of such victim narratives on a culture’s propensity to engage in war have been attested to time and again – often, nations justify war as a defensive endeavor. Here, the focus on the violence faced by Trojan women would have created fears of similar fates awaiting Athenian wives and daughters.
The pitfalls of The Trojan Women can be reflected upon the feminist scholars who theorize the absence of women’s voice in the Trojan War tradition. By identifying the lack of women’s perspectives in the Odyssey as a slight against women’s agency, these scholars apply contemporary frames to Ancient problems. This analysis also creates a victim narrative that effaces context by applying a universal frame to understand women’s experience (Winkler). This lens also misreads the significance of Penelope’s silence or the lack of insight into her motives: these are seen as moments of erasure, in which her voice is swept under the rug in order to make room for men’s endeavors. What is needed is an analysis of Penelope’s silence and her actions that account for their significance in the cultural context of Ancient Greece (Doherty). By accounting for Penelope’s contextual agency in the Odyssey, we can break with an aspect of the feminist lens that simply presences a modern woman’s voice in an attempt to fill the void (a project that ultimately repeats the same silencing gesture that is intended to be overcome).
Penelope’s lack of internal monologue and openly discussed motive should not be taken as a sign of her domestication or subjugation. Instead, they should be read as a sort of setting: certainly, Penelope’s silence is reflective of the social conditions women faced in Ancient Greece. These conditions (and social norms regarding hospitality, etc.) certainly limited the range of actions available to her as her house was overrun with suitors, but this only attests to how much power Penelope wields in the story. Her ability to secure her well-being in the face of malevolent suitors who exploited the social conventions that bound her testifies to the ability of women to navigate even the most oppressive and silencing conditions (Marquardt).
It is important to note that this should not be read as a sign of how committed Penelope was to her husband, Odysseus. Her capacities do not testify to her intentions, which are veiled from the beginning by her silence (Fredricksmeyer). In fact, this demonstrates how her silence can be read in ways that are beneficial for representations of women’s agency in the Trojan War tradition. By hiding behind the veil of silence, she is able to play multiple fronts to her advantage until conditions change and her husband defeats the suitors. The depth of her mysterious nature is highlighted by the significant debate surrounding exactly when it is that Penelope realizes that her husband has returned home (that is, when she saw through his disguise as a beggar). This ambiguity also forces us to confront the possibility that she could have been making plans outside of Odysseus’ return home – effectively, she begins to look more and more like a self-interested actor than an empty vessel awaiting the return of her husband (Murnaghan).
The misunderstandings that result from her deception are even further developed in the depiction of women’s work in the Odyssey. Traditionally read as an institution that disenfranchised women to the point of objectification, work such as weaving is actually exploited by Penelope to advance her own interests. By taking advantage of the suitors’ total lack of knowledge of women’s experience and work, she was able to delay their wedding proposals under the ruse of weaving a shroud for Laertes. Over the course of several years, she would weave in the day and then undo her work at night, claiming to the ignorant suitors that such an endeavor would take a long time. While such working conditions are clearly not beneficial to women, Penelope’s story does depict the potential for women to overcome all odds and exploit patriarchal institutions to their own ends (Mueller).
Such a reading clearly breaks with the victim narrative that many feminist critiques fall back upon as they approach the Homeric epics. Some authors go so far as to argue that Penelope’s juxtaposition with other (less likeable) women in the Odyssey positions her as a model for women in Ancient Greece (Foley). Regardless of whether or not Greek men would have sought out wives who displayed a propensity to transgress the social conventions of a patriarchal society, it is important to account for the contextual significance of women’s work and women’s silence, lest we as literary critics fall prey to the seductive act of applying universal frames to specific contexts. Such a skill is especially important as we learn to approach texts as a significant as the Homeric epics and issues as important as women’s oppression.
Annotated Bibliography
Doherty, Lillian. Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Print.
Doherty also focuses on the fact that we never know for sure the moment when Penelope actually realizes Odysseus’ true identity. She surveys a variety of analytical tools that have been employed in an attempt to shed light on this part of the text, ranging from approaches that look at narrator intention and audience reception. She criticizes scholars that approach Penelope as a symbol of feminine devotion, arguing that Penelope’s lack of commitment to a specific course of action in the face of the suitors reveals a self-interested gesture of self-preservation. Doherty also contrasts two forms of feminist literary theory, arguing that attempts to find agency within texts is a preferable method to those that embrace textual determinism and claim that the text itself excludes female agency altogether. This perspective will prove useful as I attempt to illuminate the ways in which many critics make uncritical claims about the universal nature of the oppression of women across time and culture.
Dué, Casey. The Captive Women’s Lament in Greek Tragedy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. Print.
Dué’s analysis engages the image of the captive woman in Greek Tragedy, focusing specifically at times on the works of Athenian playwright Euripides. This book provides context for my claims regarding how many feminist scholars approach the significance of the presence of women’s voices in the Trojan War tradition.
Ebbott, Mary. “Butler’s Authoress of the Odyssey: Gendered Readings of Homer, Then and Now.” Center for Hellenic Studies. N.p. N.d. Web. 1 May 2012. <http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=1313>.
Ebbott offers a survey of feminist readings of the Odyssey, starting with Samuel Butler’s controversial book The Authoress of the Odyssey. She evaluates his claim that the Odyssey, by virtue of its form and content, was written by a woman. In doing so, she attempts to conceptually group feminist readings that take this debate as a starting point into two distinct camps: feminist critique, which works to criticize male-authored texts, and gynocriticism, which works with texts that have been authored by women. Her analysis offers a developed criticism of the ways in which scholars often read their own historically and culturally specific understandings of women into ancient works, which will be useful as I attempt to develop a more nuanced reading of Penelope’s agency in the Odyssey.
Euripides. “The Trojan Women.” Great Books Index. N.p. N.d. Web. 29 April 2012. <http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/troj_women.html>.
This source offers a freely accessible copy of an English translation of Euripides’ Trojan Women. This source will be analyzed as an example of a Greek play that is narrated from a female perspective, to investigate the value of such a point of view for feminist criticism.
Foley, Helene. “Penelope as Moral Agent.” The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey. Ed. Beth Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 93-115. Print.
Foley surveys various representations of women within Homer’s Odyssey. In focusing on Penelope, Cohen argues that we can deduce certain character traits that would have been held in high esteem by the audience – effectively, we can see the traits that Greek men would have valued as we develop a nuanced interpretation of how Penelope is represented. This reading analyzes her actions as an ethical subject in spite of limitations born out of social constraints. In other words, Cohen offers a view of how Penelope functions as an agent, even “against the odds” of a society controlled by men. This reading serves to illuminate how the portrayal of Penelope actually celebrates female agency.
Fredricksmeyer, Hardy. “Penelope “Polutropos:” The Crux at Odyssey 23.218-24.” The American Journal of Philology 118.4 (1997): 487-97. Print.
Fredricksmeyer attempts to reject the focus on Penelope as a symbolic or celebrated figure of womanhood (especially in comparison to other women in the epic) by treating her as a multifaceted character with veiled motives. He does so by analyzing her lines on multiple levels, starting with her speech upon learning of Odysseus’ homecoming, and ending with her self-comparison to Helen. He attempts to shed light on Homer’s intentions as an author by comparing the representations of Penelope in the Odyssey to other narrative accounts of her loyalty.
Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997. Print.
This translated edition of the Iliad tells the story of the last days of the Achaean war upon the city of Troy. This source begins (in narrative time) the epic cycle of the Trojan War, and the content of its story will be analyzed as a counterpoint to the content of the Odyssey. Many authors claim that this story’s focus on war is countered in the Odyssey, which focuses on the restoration of the homestead as soldiers return home. This analysis will prove useful as I attempt to investigate the ways in which Greek women (especially Penelope) are represented.
Homer. Odyssey. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000. Print.
This translated edition of the Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus’ voyage home, as well as the trials and tribulations that his wife and son encounter in his absence. This original source material will be drawn upon extensively to provide context for my analysis of Penelope’s role in Homer’s epic.
Marquardt, Patricia. “Penelope ‘Polutropos’” The American Journal of Philology 106.1 (1985): 32-48. Print.
Marquardt evaluates Penelope’s character against the backdrop of her oft-represented cunning and intelligence. Referring to the testimony of various characters as well as her actions, Marquardt attempts to shed light on Penelope’s intentions and her circumstances. She discusses the significance of social conventions such as hospitality that constrained Penelope’s possible choices as a woman, and paints her actions as expressions of agency that overcame these limitations. While Marquardt’s analysis is in line with many of the authors I will cite in my essay, she celebrates Penelope’s actions as acts of devotion to Odysseus. This is a contested point that will need to be investigated in depth in my essay.
Mueller, Melissa. “Helen’s Hands: Weaving for Kleos in the Odyssey.” Helios 37.1 (2010): 1-21. Print.
Mueller lends credence to recent attempts to activate the agency of women in Homeric epics by analyzing the textual and cultural significance of women’s work like weaving. Mueller approaches the domestic work of Helen and Penelope, showing how their interactions with men in the novel (through women’s work) retain a fundamentally political dimension. She shows how, through conversation, we know that clothes and garments made by women function as material that identifies the male wearer, which shows the way in which “women’s work” bleeds over into what is often considered the male-dominated social spaces. Most importantly, Mueller talks about how Penelope was able to take advantage of Greek men’s lack of appreciation for women’s work to delay her impeding marriage.
Murnaghan, Sheila. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Print.
Murnhaghan analyzes the importance of the hotly contested issue of disguise in the Odyssey. She points out that Odysseus is not the only person with veiled intentions – in fact, Penelope takes on a unique sort of disguise as her intentions are never discussed from her perspective. This challenges the fundamental claim of several feminist criticisms of Greek text, which argue that the absence of female voices speak to a fundamental oppression of woman. Instead, this silence offers insight into the unique expression of women’s agency in Ancient Greece – even if they lack a political voice, they do have the power of artifice and deception. Murnhaghan thus portrays Penelope as the mirror image of Odysseus, who must hide his intentions due to social constraints. This re-interpretation of Penelope’s role in the Odyssey will be essential in illuminating the ways in which contemporary critics efface the unique agency of women in Ancient Greece.
“Penelope and Her Impact on Greek Art and Culture.” The Role of Women in the Art of Ancient Greek. N.p. 28 Nov. 2011. Web. 29 Apr. 2012. <http://www.fjkluth.com/penelope.html>.
This online article provides background information on Penelope’s character and her role in Homer’s works and Greek culture at large. It argues that Penelope was a devoted wife and explains the significance of her actions through this lens. Clearly this perspective is at odds with the analysis the conclusions I will attempt to draw. I plan on citing this as contextualization for a simplistic reading of the Odyssey, and pointing out how many cultural critics see the mirror image of Western society in this idealization of a loyal Penelope.
Smith, Nicole. “The Narrow Role of Women: The Odyssey by Homer.” Article Myriad. N.p. 6 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2012. < http://www.articlemyriad.com/narrow-role-women–odyssey-homer/>.
Smith argues that women in Homer’s Odyssey face a limited number of possible roles and opportunities, being constrained by the social norms of Greek society at the time. Smith claims that the status of men and women in Homer’s epics are clearly divided – men are portrayed as complex and dynamic characters, whereas women can only fulfill a few archetypal roles. She claims Penelope plays the role of both mother figure and seductress simultaneously, based on a feminist archetypal analysis. I will argue that this is a shallow and simplistic analysis on Penelope’s character, and discuss how these contradictory representations of Penelope offer her character a refuge of veiled intentions.
Winkler, John. The Constraints of Desire. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1990. Print.
Winkler criticizes the tendency of anthropologists and academics to treat sexuality and gender as static institutions with set characteristics. Citing Foucault, he argues that scholars must pay special attention to the contingent nature of social relations between sexes and the way in which gender and sexuality are socially constructed in differential ways across time and culture. He then applies this analytical frame to the way in which several scholars have attempted to read and critique textual artifacts from Ancient Greece, specifically in the way that Penelope has been represented as a devoted wife or a passive vessel of Greek masculinity. This starting point will prove useful as I try to engage in a more nuanced reading of Penelope’s agency as an actor navigating the expectations of men in Greek society.
Abstract #1
Marquardt, Patricia. “Penelope ‘Polutropos’” The American Journal of Philology 106.1 (1985): 32-48. Print.
Patricia Marquardt attempts to recover the complex and intelligent Penelope against the grain of those who treat her as a symbol of feminine devotion and loyalty. Marquardt employs an in-depth analysis of the text of the Odyssey itself to demonstrate how Penelope’s veiled motives and her ways of dealing with the suitors attest to her intelligence and her self-interested nature.
She starts with the assumption that Penelope’s contradictory motives (for example, sending private messages to suitors while publicly condemning them) speak to an internal dialogue that we are not made privy to in the text. She explains these moments of confusion or contradiction as examples of how Penelope overcomes the limitations imposed upon her by the traditions of her society. This perspective ultimately views Penelope’s more “duplicitous” actions as necessary given her precarious condition. Marquardt effectively views these actions as survival mechanisms – actions that she has no choice but to take.
In spite of being forced to play along in the public eye, Penelope still retains agency in the shadows of night. Marquardt focuses extensively on the private messages, explaining how, by leading individual suitors on, she created a competitive environment that insulated her from having to make a choice while still meeting social conventions. Marquardt argues that Telemachus’ frequent jabs at his mother attest to how good she is at deception.
Marquardt brings an original perspective to the table and does a very good job grounding her analysis with references to the text. I think her thesis would benefit from a broader set of references (for example, a deeper analysis of the significance of Penelope’s deception at the loom), however, her work effectively casts Penelope as a figure with just as much cunning and intelligence as Odysseus.
Abstract #2
Mueller, Melissa. “Helen’s Hands: Weaving for Kleos in the Odyssey.” Helios 37.1 (2010): 1-21. Print.
Melissa Mueller embarks on an informative and insightful effort to expose the significance of the act of weaving in Ancient Greek culture. Rather than portray weaving as a demeaning or exploitive act expected of women, Mueller argues that weaving was uniquely political. By applying this perspective to the Odyssey, she yields an excellent portrayal of Helen and Penelope as dynamic women with the power to shape men around them in spite of their social limitations faced by women in Ancient Greece.
Mueller treats woven objects (cloaks, shrouds, etc.) as coded acts of communication and as objects that embody female glory. This breaks with a tradition that views women’s gifts in the Trojan War tradition as harbingers of disaster of destruction. Instead, woven objects function as marks on the men and women that wear them. A garment effectively identifies a man with a particular woman, functioning as a sign of affection, good intention, or even a promise.
By analyzing Helen’s gift of clothe to Telemachus, Mueller shows how women’s work was highly valued in Greek society (the text refers to the gift as a “monument” to Helen’s skill at weaving). By analyzing Penelope’s deception at the loom, she shows how women were able to exploit patriarchal institutions towards personal gain. Most importantly, Helen’s gift and Penelope’s deception were transmitted/occurred only in the presence of women. Helen’s gift was intended for Telemachus’ mother and wife only – and Penelope’s work at the loom occurred only among women. As such, the political dimensions of women’s work were largely secretive, even if the work was valued by men.
This was a very informative essay that embodies an attentive and nuanced orientation towards studying Greek society. This sort of methodology is hard to come across in quick surveys of relevant literature, and this reading served as an important gateway to a more informed perspective as I was studying the issue of women’s experience in Ancient Greece.
Research Narrative
My research started out with a very broad orientation towards a feminist analysis of Homer’s epics. Initially, I found myself looking at analyses of authorship and a lack of representation of female characters – or criticisms of the social structures of Greek society. However, this literature base turned out to be surprisingly small and un-qualified. I then turned to a familiar branch of literary criticism, psychoanalysis, to investigate the ways in which the female body is figured in texts from Ancient Greece. However, as we spoke about this lens in class, it appeared that it wasn’t the most useful analytic for two reasons: first, it placed too much emphasis of static categories of gender which didn’t necessarily manifest in the Greek texts (it was a poorly made, universalized connection) and some of the ways in which I wanted to apply it seemed wordy and esoteric – essentially, I could argue the same points without delving into a complex literature base.
With that in mind, I attempted to evaluate my preferred topic with the necessity for cultural and historical specificity in mind. I wanted to find sources that accounted for the ways that contemporary scholars often saw Greek society as a mirror image of or against the yardstick of today’s social relations. This was especially important in the context of feminist theory, since the ideas I had previously had amounted to criticizing the Homeric epics for not reflecting the social conventions of the society we know today.
This led me into a completely different and surprisingly well-developed literature base. Many of these authors explicitly engage the ways in which feminist cultural critics have approached and should approach the textual artifacts of Greek culture. They attempt to offer a more nuanced account of how women existed in Greek society, and how, in this context, the representations of women (specifically, Penelope) could have been progressive or feminist at the time. I think that this body of literature has relieved many of my concerns about cultural imperialism or universalism in my essay – that is, I’ve stepped away from a blanket condemnation of Greek society and towards a more nuanced analysis of how texts like the Odyssey actually affected women’s lives.
However, one of the most frustrating parts about this literature base is that it is confined almost exclusively to books and scholarly articles. Given the requirements for this bibliography, I needed to find several online sources. In my initial searches, the search terms I used almost exclusively yielded sources from online paper mills. After modifying my terms to essays for sale, I began to have more luck. However, many of the sources left something to be desired. In the end, I chose to take sources that made more complete arguments, even if they were against the grain of what I intend to argue. I plan on using these sources as examples of the ways in which many scholars analyze the Homeric epics. Essentially, I want to use them as a jumping off point to begin my analysis of the ways in which Penelope could actually be read as a symbol of female empowerment.
The Trojan War 