In Homer’s Odyssey, the over one-hundred suitors at Odysseus’s home of Ithaca threaten to overthrow the former king they assume dead. Their violence and careless living in his home impose on Penelope and Telemachas’s safety and privacy, causing Odysseus to hurry back home. However, the suitors present an even bigger threat: they threaten to destroy and absolve Penelope and Odysseus’s marriage. Faithful Penelope, though, delays her decision by promising to make a choice of a suitor after she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for Odysseus and undoing her work every night. If Penelope had given in to the suitors, they would live under the thumb of their suitors with Odysseus barred from his own home. Even though debatably an excessive consequence, Odysseus reserves the right to serve out punishment to the suitors. They invaded his home, …show more content…
In the first twenty stanzas, the Pearl author describes the Pearl in a mournful adoration. Early on, he falls into a sleep and dreams about a maiden adorned in pearls and in her bosom, a large pearl, the one he has searched and mourned for. He calls out to the Pearl, relating his emptiness he has held since he lost it. But soon, we discover that the Pearl indeed has more than an earthly quality to it. As many discovered, the author might have written this about his daughter. In fact, when the narrator addresses the pearl within the maiden’s bosom, he, more than likely, addresses the maiden instead of the pearl. Searching high and low for his pearl, the narrator shows us that the pearl takes the form of his daughter, or some a young female he loved dearly. Presenting more than just a case of a lost possession, the maiden demonstrates and expounds on the topic of grief with Christian doctrine, encouraging the mourning jeweler that he indeed has a purpose to live. She points him to a higher purpose and goal: