Penelope: Difference between revisions

Still believing Odysseus is dead, Penelope’s suitors continue to live off his spoils and try to force her choose a new husband. Penelope does what many women would do when they don’t want to make a decision--she puts it off.  For three years, she weaves and unweaves the burial shroud for Laertes, Odysseus’ father, telling the suitors that she will choose one after the shroud is complete.  This shows me how absolutely dense these suitors were if they believed it would take her three years to make this shroud.  My goodness, she continues to take it apart and put it back together nightly.  As usually happen, the longer a bad situation goes on, the worse it gets and finally, a confrontation took place.  Her son, Telemachus took over when the assembly met in session and tright to get the suitors to back off.  Although possibly moved by their plan, they did not back off. Antonous, one of the main suitors, blamed Penelope for putting off choosing one of them as her husband.  Penelope’s situation was basically handled by Zeus, who sent two eagles which swooped down, tearing cheeks and necks with their talons.  Like many things in this epic poem, the eagles that Zeus sent were an omen, which a wise man interpreted as impending doom for the suitors.  One things that did happen is that Telemachus became more manly.  When his mother became upset, rather than consoling her, he scolded her.  "His unsympathetic treatment of her and his stiff reminder that Odysseus was not the only one who perished are sterotypically masculine responses to tragedy that suit him to the demands of running his father's household.(1)"  She ''may'' think she has lost Odysseus, but she knows she has lost control of her son.