Athena And Gender Roles During The Odyssey - 1776 Words

Allen Professor T. Carlisle English 212-044 October 05,2017 Research paper intro and thesis and work cited Athena and Gender Roles in the Odyssey The expectations of gender roles had a great impact on women in classical Greek society. In Ancient Greece, women were banned from entering the battlefield because warfare was seen more suitable for men, it is where they would show their strengths, physical courage and power. Women had no power or say as far as giving orders, their role was to stand behind their men. Homer shows that mortal men and women had exact roles to follow and were treated as such, it is stated that there is a strict line between masculine and feminine and that mixing gender roles was socially unaccepted in the time of†¦show more content†¦But in the Odyssey, on the other hand they were everywhere and have major roles in the action; this allows for a clearer conception of gender roles to be developed than would have been possible from Iliad† (Whittaker 30). In the poem the roles of males and females is further explored. Athena demonstrates the most important role of all the characters in â€Å"The Odyssey† which exemplifies that without her dominant role of both male and female, Odysseus would not have made it safely on his journey back home. Whittaker states â€Å"The warlike qualities of Odysseus are emphasized by Athena when disguised as a mentes, she first comes to Ithaca in order to take Telemakhos in hand† (Whittaker 30). There were other characters that have stepped outside the boundaries of their female roles, Adromakhe and Penelope to name a few. I think it is safe to say that as I read the poems and the sources that I have gathered, I can conclude that the roles of males and females were recognized and were defined so that certain tasks were considered to be male only while others were of females. For example, Whittaker states â€Å"in the Odyssey, both men and women are shown working, but the Homeric household can be described as a segregation rather than joint household; that is to say that men and women have separateShow MoreRelatedFemale Characters Of Women During The Odyssey By F. Scott Fitzgerald1499 Words   |  6 Pagessociety today, women were oppressed to a much greater extent in earlier periods of human history. During the time Homer transcribed The Odyssey, women were not even allowed to participate in the theatrical performances; male actors played the female characters. Despite these conditions, female characters are very prevalent in the epic, and many of them even exert their independence outside of traditional gender norms at the time. 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