Ancient Literature in our Modern World

When reading Margaret Atwood’s play the Penelopiad we see a very different perspective on the Odyssey. Atwood decided she wanted to write her play in a woman perspective, by putting Penelope as the main character and narrator of the story. There were a couple of quotes i found interesting in the story that i would like to briefly discuss.

“Rumors came, Carried by other ships. Odysseus and his men had got drunk at their first port of call and the men had mutinied, said some; no, said others, they’d eaten a magic plant that had caused them to lose their memories, and Odysseus had saved them by having them tied up and carried onto the ships”.

To bring this quote into perspective i will start with the brief background. During this time Penelope has seen the beacon that the City of Troy has fallen and has been patiently waiting for her husband Odysseus to come home from war. After a while, Odysseus hasn’t returned and people began making up stories about odysseus and his death. What i found extremely interesting is Penelope being a the de facto ruler of Ithaca was able to stay loyal to her husband Odysseus for almost 10 years. No one knew what really happened to him, many presumed him dead and wanted her to pick a new husband to help her rule.

The Quotes above show a couple of stories people were saying that happened to odysseus. We know what really happened to him at sea getting lost but listening to Penelope’s perspective on how she dealt with all the false news was quite interesting. In a story where we saw a lot of back stabbing especially with husband and wife, Penelope was able to stay loyal to her husband for an extremely long time even though she didn’t know what really happened to him.

Discussion Question: At the end of the Excerpt of the Penelopiad Penelope says “Rumours stopped coming altogether: odysseus seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth”. How do you think Penelope was able to live with herself not knowing where her husband was? how did she deal with the pain and suffering? Do you think she knew where he really was and therefore delayed picking a successor?