Women of The Epics Throughout the Iliad and The Odyssey there are four themes that has been discussed; coming of age, hospitality, fate, and women. Each theme is touched upon in different scenarios, but all can be pointed out fairly easily. However, women is a subject that is prevalent in both epics and they are not treated like real people, but merely as an object.
The Iliad talks a lot about women, like when the Greeks win a war they take treasures, food and wine, and women from those they defeated. They take women from the Island of Lesbos specifically, because the women are just so beautiful even they fall in love with each other; these women are usually used as sex slaves due to men are already being married. Being given a woman is considered
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Why are women treated so poorly, but goddess’s are not? God’s and goddesses are treated with loads of respect, as well as regular men, but not regular women. Goddesses are women with immense power, but they are still women, so if they didn’t have any supernatural power they would be treated just like the regular women and that is not fair. Women can do many of the things that a man can, but no one will allow them to even try. In the Odyssey, book 21, Penelope wasn’t even given the option of stringing the bow. She didn’t want to remarry, she wanted Odysseus back, not another man to control her life. Men can do what they say, when they say, but not once did we read about a woman speaking for herself. A prime opportunity for standing up for oneself would be in the Iliad when Agamemnon was taking Briseis from Achilles, we read in lines 360-361, page 115, that the heralds who went for her led her away, and she went, but it unwillingly. She did not want to leave Achilles, and she should have had the right to say that, and tell them no she is not property and she wants to stay with Achilles; if she did that though there is a possibility that would kill