Penelope Gender Roles In Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and environmental activist born in Ottawa Canada. She specialized in works of Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, and Dystopian Fiction. She has written many novels and poems and was awarded for some of her work. The Penelopiad is a novel written from the perspective of Penelope the wife of Odysseus and her twelve maids. It describes the life she and her maids lived while Odysseus was out to war at Troy and the deadly outcome when he returns home. Penelope was taken advantage of during the absence of Odysseus, she was a teenager with no political experience, she had no man power, she had no family, and was exploited due to these weaknesses. It was an unfortunate circumstance that left Penelope

The men were kings or soon to be kings. They competed for the wife and bragged, ate, belched, drank, and had sexual affairs with the maids of the palaces they visited. They were warriors, politicians, and heroes. They had all the important roles and there wasn’t even a thought of a woman having one of these roles. In chapter twelve of the novel Penelope takes on the role of a man by tending to duties that men were usually in charge of. She ran the palace single handedly the best she can, she did inventory on all households and all resources of Ithaca. She planned to increase all the numbers to increase the wealth. She was increasing livestock, slaves, and grain, which increased wealth. All was going well until the suitors arrived in more and more numbers using and taking advantage of Penelope’s vulnerability, all of her hard work was erased

Odysseus was enraged at the condition of the palace and couldn’t stand the fact that his maids that he didn’t know and or weren’t even born when he left dare to sleep with and or befriend the suitors that destroyed his palace. I feel that he put all the blame on the women and wanted to get rid of anyone who had anything to do with what was lost. It was also almost as if he secretly didn’t care for Penelope and had a reason to kill her. I say this because Eurycleia paid no consequences for what occurred while Odysseus was gone. It was an obvious sign of favoritism and Penelope never got a chance to explain any of her strategies to Odysseus and her reasons for doing what she did. It was an unjust death for her and her maids. There was no chance of explanation, just the rage of an upset person who did not want to hear any