The Role of Women in Homer's The Iliad

Thesis: Women in The Iliad serve as helpless pawns but also as a moral voice in the poem.

A. Homeric poems may contain several layers due to revisions throughout history.

B. The Iliad is an epic poem about the manly heroic ideal.

II. Women in The Iliad serve as pawns in the Trojan War.

A. Helen is a pawn in the Trojan War.

B. All humans in the poem serve as pawns to the gods.

C. Aphrodite uses Helen as a pawn toward her own quest for power.

III. Women also serve as the moral center of The Iliad.

A. Helen recognizes her role in the Trojan War.

B. Andromakke reminds Hector of his obligations to his household.

C. Women have a voice through laments and dirges.

The Role of Women in Homer's The Iliad

In Feminism in Greek Literature, F. A. Wright argues that Homeric poems were not written to suit the old Mediterranean people, whose rather low code of sexual morality inclined them to regard women as mere instruments of pleasure (7). Instead, the epic in its original shape was composed for the people who came down into Greece from central Europe and, therefore, recognized a much stricter code of sexual conduct (7). Wright believes that the apparently differing layers of the Homeric poems was caused by the constant revision of the poems as the ruling classes of Greece changed (8). This theory would help to explain the apparently contradictory conclusion of this study, that is, that women

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istance to those who deserve it or those whom they favor. Helen is as much at the mercy of the gods as are the men on the battlefield. In response to Helen's plea that she not be forced to lay with her Trojan husband after he has been beaten in battle by her Greek husband, Aphrodite replies: "Better not be so difficult. . . . I can make hatred for you grow amid both Trojans and Danaans, and if I do, you'll come to a bad end" (III. 501-06). Helen is no different from the men in that respect. She is unhappy with her situation in Troy but she believes that she must live through this because the gods have ordered it: "You [Hektor] are the one afflicted most by harlotry in me and by [Paris'] madness, our portion, all of misery, given by Zeus that we may live in song for men to come" (VI. 416-17). Helen serves as the motivating factor for Greece's war with Troy and instigates the first battle in The Iliad between Menelaos and Paris but has very little "stage time" in the poem. She presides over the battle between Menelaos and Paris and goes to Paris' side when Aphrodite spirits him off of the battlefield. However, her struggle against Aphrodite's urging in Book Three clearly indicates that Helen does indeed have thoughts of he

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