Penelope In Homer's Odyssey

Words: 659
Pages: 3

In today's world it seems like everyone is impatient because everything that you want there is practically no waiting. With that being said how long would you be willing to wait for at a restaurant to go somewhere else. For some people that could be 10 minutes, others maybe 20 or thirty but anything above that people are going to go somewhere else. Now imagine that you had to wait 20 years to be able to be seated. This is the story of Penelope in the Odyssey. Penelope’s spouse King Odysseus was taken by Sparta to fight in the Trojan War. After the war Odysseus and his crew were setting sail for home but ended up on the wrong track and resulted in delaying Odysseus’ return by several years. All the while Queen Penelope is at the palace …show more content…
While Odysseus was away Penelope’s suitors were constantly trying to seduce her so that the can not only marry her but to also sleep with her. However she absolutely despised the suitors so when she found out that they had been slaughtered she said “ ‘They’d no regard for any man on earth -- good or bad -- who chanced to come their way. So, thanks to their reckless work they die their deaths.’ ” (22.72-74) This is important because it shows that she truly hated the suitors and that she is thankful for their deaths because of how they disgraced the palace and how they made a mockery of the man Odysseus was. This also means that she was truly loyal to Odysseus since she never cared for the suitors and the fact that she was happy that they died.

It is unbelievably obvious that Penelope is truly loyal to Odysseus. Throughout the Odyssey Penelope was undoubtedly faithful and loyal to Odysseus because she absolutely hated the suitors because of how all of them were acting with complete disregard for the palace and the fact that she resisted the temptation that the suitors gave her even after her husband has been gone and most likely dead for 18 years. Throughout all of The Odyssey I leaned a lot about what it meant to be loyal through Penelope’s