Isolation In The Penelopiad By Margaret Atwood

Isolation occasionally drives a person to insanity and causes them to do things they normally wouldn’t. When everything they know and love is stripped from a person, their true character is reveal. In The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, Penelope faces this exact scenario when she is left behind in Ithaca as Odysseus leaves to fight in the Trojan war, losing the only person she can trust. In the absence of Odysseus, Penelope’s complex character is revealed. Atwood effectively uses diction, point of view, syntax and tone to characterize Penelope as a skeptical, needy and loyal character. The first person perspective used by Margaret Atwood in The Penelopiad gives us valuable insight of the true motives and feelings of Penelope’s character. In the chapter “Waiting” of the Penelopiad, we get a clear glimpse into how lonely Penelope is in Odysseus’s absence. Penelope tells us that “Despite all the
Considering the extent of his absence, it reveals to the reader just how loyal Penelope is as a spouse. When she refers to the stories the minstrels tell her about Odysseus’s, she denies since she feels that the minstrels, “took up these themes and embroidered them considerably.” (Atwood, 84). In her mind, “supernatural monsters and beloved of goddesses” are the reasons Odysseus is yet to return. The diction in the passage gives a emphasizes the power of the forces that are keeping her husband from returning home, which highlights the trust she has for her husband; she gives him the benefit of the doubt. She believes that “...only a strong divine power could keep my husband from rushing back…” (Atwood, 84) and not her husband’s own curiosity; she refuses to have that thought cross her mind. She is incredibly loyal to her husband. This loyalty to Odysseus stems from her inability to trust people and from Odysseus being the only person that respects her for who she