Treatment Of Women In The Odyssey

The women in the Odyssey by Homer and the Aeneid by Virgil are from different ethnic backgrounds and eras. The women in the Odyssey are from the Greek tribe and are controlled by their men. They live by the instructions of their husbands as dictated by their customs. The women in the Aeneid are free and empowered. They are respected by their men and are able to exercise their rights. Hence, they contributed to the development of the Roman Empire.
Penelope is the wife of Odysseus, who is the main character in the Odyssey by Homer. She is the daughter of Icarus and Peritonea. She gave birth to Telemachus the day Odysseus was called to fight at the Trojan War. She waited for twenty years for her husband to return. Even when she was told that
She realized she had to honor her promise to her husband to marry another man if he did not return before Telemachus had grown a beard. She staged an archery contest for the suitors. She assumed that no one would be able to string and shoot Odysseus’s arrow. It was after the contest that she realized that it was Odysseus who strung and shot the arrow. That was how she got her husband back.
Creusa was Aeneas’s wife at Troy and the mother of Ascanius. Aeneas was the main character in the Aeneid, and was destined to find the city of Rome in Italy. Creusa vanished when the family was escaping from Troy during the war. When Aeneas came back to check Creusa, it was her spirit that appeared to him and encouraged him to continue with his journey in order to fulfill his destiny.
Calypso was one of the ocean sea nymphs, she was the daughter of titan god Atlas. She lived on the Ogygia Island with her maids, and they have not seen a man for a long time until Odysseus arrive. She seduced Odysseus when he got to the island and promised him immortality if he would marry her. Odysseus rejected her offer and insisted on going to his wife Penelope at Ithaca. Calypso held him for seven years until Zeus intervened by sending Hermes the gods’ messenger to release him; that was when she allowed Odysseus to
She left her native land, Phoenicia, after the spirit of her husband told her that it was her brother Pygmalion who killed him. She was the founder and ruler of Carthage, a city on the coast of North Africa. She was determined not to marry again in order to preserve the memory of her late husband, Sycheaus. However, she fell in love with Aeneas when he got to the Carthage. She confided in her sister Anna, who encouraged her to allow herself to be loved since her husband was dead. Her love for Aeneas did not last, because he had to leave Carthage to find the city of Rome in Italy. She was devastated and felt betrayed because she broke her resolution not to marry another man after the death of her husband, Sycheaus. She tricked her sister to prepare a pyre where she burnt herself.
Arete was the wife of Alcinous in the Odyssey. She was honored by her husband and her community. She was the only woman who seemed not to be subjected to her husband in the odyssey like other women. When Odysseus met her daughter Nausicaä, she advised Odysseus to first go to her mother so that he can be favored before her father, Alcinous the king of