The Narrow Portrayal of Women In the Homer’s, The Odyssey, arrays of archetypical women are presented through a mostly unfavorable filter. Nonetheless, it is important to bear in mind that the time period in which the epic took place was set in an androcentric based Greek society, within it, women had little to no honorable duty, but to support their spouse and be inferior to their male counterpart. Homer embeds the partially substandard presentation of women in The Odyssey through four main archetypes: the faithful, the disloyal or destroyer, the seducer and the monster; the purpose of these archetypes will then be examined.
To begin with, the archetype of ‘the faithful’ best fits Penelope and Arête for their loyalty towards their husbands.…show more content… Immortal clothing I had from her, and kept it wet with tears. (7.274-280)
Evidently, Kalypso is precluding Odysseus from his journey to console his grief stricken kin that believe he has died; this creates a barrier between Odysseus and his family-tearing them apart. Given this information, Homer provides this situation to display the selfish and misleading qualities that women exhibit through their dealings with men. In addition, this situation constitutes a woman’s loneliness and her wanting for a male companion so that she will serve and celebrate him like a king. Undoubtedly, the archetypical characters of ‘the disloyal’ and ‘the destroyer’ supplement the notion that women are perfidious and egotistical.
As a final point, the archetypes of ‘the seducer’ and ‘the monster’ shall be combined in this paragraph, with the character of Kirke and Kharybdis to satisfy them. Correspondingly, Kirke tries to tempt Odysseus to stay with her on her island with the power of lust:
We two shall mingle and make love upon our bed. So mutual trust may come of play and love To this I said:
‘Kirke, am I a boy, that you should make me soft and doting
