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Hannah Holstein
Dr. Janine Chitty
World Literature
10/27/2014

Womens Role in the Iliad and the Odyssey

Throughout history, women have played a very influential role. They have
persuaded men and captured hearts even up to the extent of the downfall of kingdoms.
Women have also played a prominent role in works of literature. The Iliad and the
Odyssey are among some of the many books that have woman who are major characters
in the plot and events of the story. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, women such as
Penelope, he goddess Athena, and Helen all play a part in the destruction of kingdoms
and great feats of valor and adventure. The role that women play and their significance,
in what respect they hold important positions, and in what manner they are respected will
all be looked at and presented in this paper. We will begin by looking into the role and
the significance of women in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
In the Iliad and the Odyssey, women played a role of being influential to men in
great power. In the Iliad, Helen was a very beautiful woman who brought on a war
between two Greek city-states. Paris, who was a Prince of Troy, was given the task to
judge between three goddesses to award a golden apple to. Paris chose Aphrodite and
she gave him the most beautiful woman in the world as a reward, Helen of Sparta to be
his wife. The problem was that Helen had a husband already, Menelaus (The Norton

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Anthology World Literature 123). Paris took Helen back to Sparta, and this caused the
Greeks to form, among them Achilles and the bravest of the Greeks. That began a ten
year war. Helen played the role of being the cause for a major battle that cost many
lives and the eventual downfall of Troy. She could also have been a victim of the men
around her in her live. The selfishness and pride of Menelaus and the strong young love
of Paris. It was not her fault for being young and beautiful and yet she is blamed for the
beginning of a ten year war. In the odyssey, Athena plays a major role in the events that
occur. She is also one of the most significant characters throughout the book. After
Odysseus had been at war for ten years and wandering for nine years, Athena asked her
father, Zeus, if Odysseus could return home to his family. Father Zeus, whose power
is supreme, if the blessed gods really do want Odysseus to return to his home, we should
send Hermes, our quicksilver herald, to the island of Ogygia without delay to tell that
nymph of our firm resolve that long-suffering Odysseus gets to go home. I myself will
go to Ithaca to pour some spirit into his son(Odyssey 180). This quote shows how
much influence that Athena had with her father Zeus and how she was the main part in
bringing Odysseus back to his home after almost twenty years. Athena is constantly
there for Odysseus and helps him throughout the story. She even disguises herself and
goes to Odysseus son and helps him go in search for his father to rid his household and
Penelope, his mother, of the suitors. At the end of the Odyssey, Athena also disguises
Odysseus personally as an old man as part of her plan to destroy the suitors and give
Odysseus his home back. Penelope is another woman in the Odyssey who plays a major
role and is significant. She is the wife of Odysseus. Every day she would weave at the

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great loom, and every night she would unweave by torchlight. She fooled us for three
years with her craft. But in the fourth year, as the seasons rolled by, and the moons
waned, and the days dragged on, one of her women knew all about it told us, and we
caught her unweaving the gloried shroud. Then we forced her to finish itIt was then
that some evil spirits brought Odysseus from who knows where to the border of his
land (Homer 457). Penelope was faithful to her husband and was a moral constant
in the story. She refused to get remarried even though many people told her that
Odysseus was long dead. Penelope also helped Odysseus keep the hope of one day
returning home. He loved her and cared for her even throughout all his adventures and
the thought of her many a time kept him pressing on.
Women, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, hold important positions that are just as
crucial as the male heroes of the stories. Penelope, in the Odyssey, had the position of
an importance. Her husband, Odysseus had been gone for nineteen years, and in that
time she was in control of his lands. Suitors came and tried to win her hand so that they
could marry her and have the power that Odysseus had, but Penelope refused to marry
them and give the power she held in her hand to unworthy, greedy men. Athena, was
also in an important position as goddess. Athena had power over men to change their
future and destiny to good or evil. Athena spoke and she bound on her feet the
beautiful sandals, golden, immortal, that carry her over landscape and seascape on a puff
of wind. And she took the spear, bronze-tipped and massive, that the Daughter uses to
level battalions of heroes in her wrath. She shot down the peaks of Olympus to Ithaca,
where she stood on the threshold of Odysseus outer porch (Odyssey 180). Athena was

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strong goddess and had power of the worlds greatest of heroes.

Women are also accorded respect in the Iliad and the Odyssey. In that time
period of the eighth century, women generally were thought of as lower and less
important than men were. In the Iliad, Helen was treated with respect and dignity even
though she was the cause of destruction of Troy. Priam, Hector and their wives all
respected Helen and never once accused her of being the cause for war or the death of
their loved ones. Other women, such as Circe the nymph, were also accorded respect in
the Odyssey. Odysseus had landed at the island were Circes home was and he had sent
some of his men on shore to scope the island out. They came to Circes home and she
enticed them and gave them a poison that turned the men into swine. Odysseus then
went to Circes house to try to get his men back. Odysseus and the remainder of his
men and a respect for Circe that was one of fear and entering her presence with caution
and respectfulness. Odysseus was armed with a potent that was given to him by Hermes
and went to Circes house and through the right wordings and having proper respect for
the nymphs power, his men were eventually freed. By your leave, lets station this
man here to guard the ship. As for the rest of us, lead us on to the sacred house of
Circe (Homer 293). Odysseus and his men had to respect Circe almost as much as a god
because of the power she had to ruin their journey or bless it.
Throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, women play a major role in the
development of the plot and the events that happen throughout the stories. Among those
women are Athena, Penelope, Helen, and Circe are just a few. Women in these books
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play the major role of influencing the decisions and actions of men and great heroes and
being persuasive. At times, women have caused destructive paths for great heroes to go
down to, at other times, women have been the main moral constant throughout the
stories.