Helen and Penelope in The Iliad and The Odyssey
As for the loser, in their midst Akhilleus
whose value was four oxen. Standing there,
who will contend for this one" (Homer, Iliad 13.808-13).
Consider this image when considering the portrayal and role of women in The Iliad and The Odyssey: A battlefield on which men heroically fight to the death. The ground is littered with their bodies. But underneath the gore and carnage of the men's bodies are the twisted and bound bodies of live women on their backs. The above visual is an attempt to distill the apparent role of women in general and Helen and Penelope in particular in Homer's world and the world he depicts in his poems. Rather than individual persons who control their lives and their environment, women in The Iliad and The Odyssey operate as pawns controlled by the men who control the world in which they live. They serve as currency for war and peace and honor.
In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom states that The Iliad "teaches the surpassing glory of armed victory" (Bloom 29). The poem does so by exploring the heroic ideal and its contradictions. It begins with the quarrel between Agamemnon and Akhilleus over the body of two women, Khryseis and Briseis. Agamemnon must give Khryseis up to escape her father's wrath, but he takes Briseis from Akhilleus in revenge. In anger, Akhilleus deserts the Greek forces and takes Patroklos with him. Only when Patroklos, who cannot stand by and watch the Greek forces be defeated, is killed does Akhilleus return to fight for Greece. The Iliad, therefore, tells the story of the manly heroic ideal but demonstrates that such ideal relies heavily on the role of the woman as a motivating force. Interestingly enough, the woman who serves as motivation herself has very little, if any, power over the role that she must play.
As in The Iliad, a woman serves as the motivating factor for the action in The Odyssey. The Odyssey te...