Ideal Women In The Odyssey

In The Odyssey, Homer paints a picture of not only how a man should act, but how a woman should act. A woman must be good, and to be good she must have no faults whatsoever. To be a true Greek woman, she must be perfect in every way. Homer's misogynistic view of women is that women have to be so full of virtue that they end up having no substance. These women of no substance are deemed as ideal because they have no visible flaws. However, robbing these women of any flaws makes them inhuman, and therefore makes the ideal woman unattainable. Homer believes mortal women and goddesses must comply with these rules, for these rules are what makes a woman. The ideal woman is pure of mind and cooperative to all, but ultimately these standards make these women devoid of character.

Homer espouses that for a

However, women are not usually seen as honest, although Homer’s men are always ready to believe that a woman will be honest, because they believe that women are puppets ready to obey them. Penelope is first believed by the suitors to be true in her wanting to marry them: “We have men’s hearts; she touched them” (II.111). The suitors believe that women are so pure that they would never deceive them, though in the course of the book, women deceive men over and over again. Ultimately Homer’s men think that women are so pure, so readily available to do their bidding, that they are only there to be used to their advantage. Agamemnon is deceived by his own wife, and she murdered him so he feels that “the day of faithful wives is gone forever” (XI.535). Agamemnon condemns all women, based on the actions of one woman. He is murdered by the wife that he expected to be true to him. He believed she would be pure, because women are expected by men to be tokens to be used to their advantage. Homer’s view on women is that the honesty that is supposed to be so readily available in a woman is not often found, making yet another unattainable goal for