The Power of Women
Throughout the Odyssey, we follow the journey of Odysseus back home. He is the main character of the epic, and his tribulations and victories are the central plot to the story. However, all of his successes are not possible without the help of the goddess Athena, who is always by his side. Athena, a female goddess, is the one who goes to the gods and asks them to allow Odysseus to leave Calypso’s island and go home. She does this knowing Poseidon was away and she seized the opportunity.
The power and intervention of the gods and goddesses is clear throughout the epic. They are constantly getting involved on behalf of the mortals and see them as pawns that are at their mercy. Although both the gods and the goddesses have power, there are times when the gods seem to have more control then their female counterparts. This issue comes up when Hermes tells Calypso that she must let Odysseus go:
You gods are the most jealous bastards in the universe-
Persecuting any goddess who ever openly takes
A mortal lover to her bed and sleeps with him.
When Dawn caressed Orion with her rosy fingers,
You celestial layabouts gave her nothing but trouble…
When Demeter followed her heart and unbound
Her hair for Iasion and made love to him
In a late summer field, Zeus was there taking notes
And executed the man with a cobalt lightning blast.
And now you gods are after me for having a man. (Homer 73)
In this scene, Calypso is raising an issue well beyond the ancient times. She’s bringing attention to the double standard between the men and the women. She brings different instances when a goddess took a mortal lover, and was stopped by a god. Yet, when the gods do the same thing, they are left alone. The hypocrisy and lack of justice is clear in her fight for goddesses and women everywhere. Even though she herself is a goddess and is very powerful, she is still forced to do as a god tells her.
In the epic, we see many times when a goddess seems to have power, and other times when a god has the power. Each god and goddess have their respective powers and they come into play at different times. In some situations, that means the “man” has the power. And in other situations, the power goes to the “woman”. Ultimately, the power between the two forces balances out.
Do you agree that both the gods and goddess have a balanced power? Do you think that there is a double standard between the gods and the goddesses in the Odyssey? Do you think that although goddesses have power, the gods are truly the ones that make the decisions? Or perhaps, the goddesses strength is even more powerful then the gods?
I agree with the notion that Calypso brings up the issue of a double standard. It is true that one exists in the epic. At the end of the scene with Ares and Aphrodite, Ares does not seem to feel any type of shame when everyone is laughing at him. Instead however, Aphrodite is the one to run away. I think it’s incredibly interesting that even at the time where this epic was written, double standards that exist today were already present in society. Furthermore, I do not think that there is a balanced power between the gods. The women in the epic clearly have the power. For example, Athena was the one who crafted and manipulated the gods into helping her free Odysseus. The Trojan War was fought over rescuing a woman. Lastly, the main woman in the household was the ones who decided which guests were welcome and which ones were not. In each ot these instances men did not have nearly as much power as women, whether that power be emotional, sexual, or social.
I believe that goddesses are powerful in Odyssey. The strength of women conveys in these lines: “Odysseus’ strong hands clinging to the rocks, Until the skin was ripped off.
The wave pulled him under, and he would have died
Then and there. But Athena was with him.” (Book 5, lines 437-440).” From these scene we can see that Odysseus certainly needs help from Athena, nurturing his sorrow and pain. She helps Odysseus more than any god will do in Odyssey. She rescues him, guides him and acts like a lifeguard of his journey, when Odysseus feels down Athena is the only hope in overcoming his struggles.