Penelope Was the Real Hero of “The Odyssey” All Along

Mention Homer’s Odyssey, and the first name that comes to mind is undoubtedly Odysseus. Hard to blame a fellow Greek for that, seeing how he lends his name to the title. After all, this is a hero of warring and wandering - a soldier who survived the Trojan War, fought off storms at sea, and even outsmarted gods and mythical creatures on his way home. It took him ten long years to get back to his homeland of Ithaca, but he finally made it. 

Yet, when we read modern retellings of the Ancient Greek epic, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Claire North’s Songs of Penelope trilogy, or Rosie Hewlett’s Sweetbitter Song, we realize that there is another character who deserves our attention and recognition. If Odysseus is a hero, Penelope is unquestionably his queen and the center of the epic. However, she has traditionally been overshadowed by her husband and other male characters.

Over centuries, Penelope has suffered from being typecast as a faithful and patient wife who waited for her husband to return home. Yet, this is not the whole story, as many retellings set in Ancient Greece demonstrate.

 While Penelope waited for Odysseus to return home, she ruled Ithaca with a firm hand, raised her son, and managed to fend off persistent suitors. Despite the absence of political power in her hands, she managed to keep control of the kingdom and not let all the undesirable proposals ruin her life. 

In other retellings, she is willing to take up arms to protect her home. There are countless examples of Penelope’s heroism and strength, both in the original Odyssey and in its modern adaptations.

So, instead of asking why Penelope, the wife, mother, and queen, is not considered a hero, perhaps we should be asking why we did not notice the brave actions of the queen of Ithaca while Odysseus was away on his adventure.

Penelope’s “Waiting” was Never as Passive As We Were Taught

The character of Penelope is not as simple as many would like to see it in Homer’s Odyssey. While she is not a man, Penelope certainly knows how to manipulate people to get what she wants. 

For instance, she tricks her suitors by promising to choose one of them when she finishes her shroud for poor Laertes, Odysseus’s father. She does that by unwinding the thread every night to deceive the suitors every morning, continuing to do this until Odysseus comes back home.

Instead of simply refusing to give her hand to any of the suitors, Penelope uses cunning as well. It is explained by the fact that she knew if she rejected them, they would have simply taken the throne of Ithaca and killed Telemachus. 

That is why she had to outsmart them with her limited resources of knowledge, not using her husband’s military might that she did not have at her disposal.

She Wasn’t Just Raising Telemachus. She Was Keeping A Family Together.

Songs of Penelope by Claire North makes this theme most evident.

In North’s Penelope, the mother of Telemachus is not the only one to suffer from her children’s misfortunes - Penelope herself is shown to have taken in a number of wayward youths who had been cast out by their own households. After the deaths of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Penelope takes in their children, Electra and Orestes.

who, like Telemachus, are in need of guidance and protection.

This feat requires courage and an incredible amount of empathy from Penelope, as Electra and Orestes have been raised in the troubled household of Atreus and consequently have had to witness and take part in many violent affairs. With Agamemnon gone and Clytemnestra distraught over his death, young Electra and Orestes had to fend for themselves.

By sending Telemachus off to school at the age of five and subsequently raising him all alone for twenty years, Penelope had to experience the burden of bringing up a child without a father figure most painfully first-hand. Instead of growing bitter and resentful, she draws upon this lesson and shares her strength with Electra and Orestes, refusing to make assumptions about their troubled natures as the children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and giving them a chance to choose their own path in life. 

This, too, is a kind of heroism.

And Then There Are The Maids
Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad offers the most vicious mockery of Homer’s treatment of the twelve maids in the poem here.

While the ballad barely grants the maids any voice at all, Attwood gives them a loud and raucous chorus.

In the original tale, the twelve maids are hanged by Odysseus for dishonoring him by sleeping with his suitors. But seen from the point of view of powerless women being used by men for their own ends, as they are in The Penelopiad, they are much more than victims of Odysseus’s jealousy and cruelty. Attwood challenges the reader to see these women as people with lives as interesting and varied as anyone else - and to realize that they are being victimized, even as they are used, by men like Odysseus.

Far from being simply the victims of Odysseus and Penelope’s son, the twelve maids are shown to be an important part of Penelope’s household - caring for her and (most importantly) raising Telemachus in Odysseus’s absence. And they certainly don’t deserve to die because they have sex with the wrong men. 

This is why Penelope is so heartbroken in The Penelopiad - she thinks of her twelve years alone with these women in her palace and realizes that none of them can survive the return of the man they all believe in - Odysseus.

Helen Wasn’t the Villain Either
Moreover, the analysis of the modern reinterpretations allowed me to further discover the relationship between Penelope and such figures as Helen and Clytemnestra.

Although Penelope in The Penelopiad feels bitter and angry that Helen is the reason Odysseus left their home, North’s Penelope seems to understand Helen more and considers her a victim of fate, which is also caused by the tyranny of men and their desire for power and luxury.

This is the critical difference that makes Penelope in The Penelopiad a better character compared to those in other adaptations. Although men decided to go to war and blame Helen for it, she only followed the orders. Helen is still “the face that launched a thousand ships,” but it is essential to remember that there are many versions of this myth.

 In some stories, Paris kidnapped Helen, while in others, she ran away with him or was bewitched by Aphrodite. Additionally, many legends claim that Theseus kidnapped Helen when she was a child and later raped her.

Regardless of the variation of the myth, it is evident that Helen became the object of men’s desires, and her life was controlled by them. For instance, before going to Troy, Helen had to leave her little daughter Hermione, and after the war, she would have to live in a world that blamed her for it all. Thus, North’s Penelope is a better character because she truly understands Helen’s suffering and can see the situation from her side. 

Moreover, Penelope knows what it means for a woman to be married to a powerful man and how cruel such people can be.

Clytemnestra Wasn’t Simply a Villain Either
The case of Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra, is not much different in that judging her as evil is easy; understanding the reasons for her actions is less so, which is why modern reinterpretations of it can be so enlightening.

Namely, Clytemnestra’s desire to kill Agamemnon originates from the pain of losing her first husband, Tantalus, and their child, whom Agamemnon had also killed before taking her as his wife. Then, he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods in order to have the winds reach Troy.

Thus, he not only took her life but also made Clytemnestra suffer twice: first by killing his own family and then by killing the daughter he did not want to part with. Hence, killing Agamemnon was an appropriately vile act in Clytemnestra’s eyes, which puts the matter to rest.

It does not make her a terrible person, as she is later killed by her son, Orestes, and makes Electra suffer terribly. However, she is not as monstrous as one could expect from a villain who kills her beloved husband.

Moreover, comparing her to Penelope shows that the latter has much in common with Clytemnestra. However, while the latter turns to murder, the former uses her mind to survive the ordeals Penelope had to overcome. Both women are not perfect heroines, but neither one is as monstrous as traditional morality wants them to be.

Penelope Didn’t Need To Inherit Sparta’s Priorities

In her reworking of the story, Claire North makes Penelope even more active than in the original. For instance, in Ithaca, Penelope is able to help defend her city from pirate attacks. In the second book, House of Odysseus, she finds herself at the center of a conflict between Ithaca and Sparta, her homeland. She has spent the last twenty years in Ithaca, which has made her pledge to the land and its people more than anything else.

When the representatives of Sparta come to Ithaca, it is not to invite Penelope back to her father’s home (which she has not seen in twenty years), but to make the country suffer the same fate as Sparta. Yet Penelope refuses to accept the terms set by her homeland, choosing the people of Ithaca instead. By doing that, she shows loyalty not to her homeland, but to the community in which she dwells.

 The only reason for it is not some martial spirit within her, but a wish to be able to protect others, as it seems, not a single other person in Ithaca was ready to do.

It should also be said that Penelope does not desire power for its own sake, as she clearly states later. Her aims and ambitions are quite simple – stability, security for her and her son, and an end to bloodshed. Power is a means to this end, and nothing more than that.

Her Refusal To Remarry Wasn’t Simply Stubbornness

Modern adaptations of Penelope’s story give the impression that she is quite right to wait for Odysseus to return. 

The reasons for this are not only her devotion to her beloved husband but also her caution as a politician. In The Last Song of Penelope, she even says that if Odysseus were really dead, and she married another man, a war would break out on the islands because of her. 

Therefore, by agreeing to remarry, she would have become a political figure as significant as Helen of Troy, giving orders to others and engaging in wars not of her own choosing. It appears that Penelope seems to be aware of the political intricacies of marriage, which shows that she is not as naïve and unsophisticated as many believe.

In her relationships with other people, Penelope shows herself to be a clever woman who knows how to conduct herself and deal with men who come to her house as equals but are far from being so. She treats her suitors, such as Kenamon, with affection and respect, but never allows them to feel as if they are in a relationship with her. Thus, when Antinous and his co-suitors begin to berate Penelope for refusing to marry any of them, it is not she who feels shame but they, for seeing through their hypocrisy. 

It seems that Penelope feels no need whatsoever to justify herself and her actions to anyone, including her possible future husband, if she is to choose him freely.

Athena Has Watched Penelope Become This Woman
In The Last Song of Penelope, Athena watches over Penelope and her household for 20 years. This implies the importance of Penelope’s fate to Athena. While Odysseus is away, Athena sees Penelope grow from a young bride to a mature and strong queen. The goddess sees her raise Telemachus and rule Ithaca with a firm hand against the persistent suitors. In addition, she is also able to observe the effects of the Trojan War on her adopted country and the affairs of state that Odysseus’s absence creates at home.

Perhaps more than any other character, Athena recognizes Penelope’s transformation and growth throughout this period. The goddess sees how Penelope has turned from a naïve young girl into a confident and experienced queen who is nothing like the Penelope Odysseus married.

While Athena values cleverness and practical intelligence, typically associated with Odysseus and seen as some of the strongest traits in any hero, she is also the first to realize that Penelope possesses these virtues in abundance.

Odysseus uses his cleverness and resourcefulness to win the Trojan War and protect himself on his journey home.

Penelope, however, uses the same skills to defend Ithaca and its people from external threats, as well as the internal ones created by her husband’s prolonged absence. Ultimately, the goddess understands that Penelope’s actions are just as heroic, if different, from those of Odysseus. This is the message of the story, as it demonstrates how Penelope and Odysseus use their free will and cleverness to overcome their challenges and protect their home.

Odysseus Comes Home–But Penelope Has Changed, Too

The ending of EPIC: The Musical, particularly the song "Would You Fall in Love with Me Again?," is an incredibly accurate depiction of what the modern adaptation of the epic poem might look like.

In this part of the musical, Odysseus returns home after twenty long years, and both he and Penelope have changed dramatically due to the experiences they had during that time. Odysseus faced the horror of war, encountered mythical creatures, was harassed by divine powers, suffered greatly, and witnessed countless gruesome deaths.

During the same time, Penelope had to suffer alone, being constantly tormented by suitors and having to keep her kingdom intact despite all odds. 

Therefore, it becomes evident that the reunion is not as straightforward as one might expect. The two lovers are now very different people who have both survived gruesome ordeals, and it takes them some time to recognize each other.

Furthermore, the long-awaited recognition does not immediately mean that Penelope and Odysseus must get back together, as she has every reason to be wary of the foreign hero who claims to be her husband. 

She proves that she has not lost her mind or senses by outwitting him with the test about the olive-tree bed, meaning that she will decide on their relationship on her own terms.

And Sometimes Penelope’s Happy Ending Doesn’t Involve Odysseus At All

Rosie Hewlett’s Sweetbitter Song offers the most innovative departure from tradition among the modern adaptations of the myth.

In Homer’s original, Penelope’s lot is cast when Odysseus returns, but in Sweetbitter Song, she finds happiness, long after his death, and chooses to spend the rest of her days with Melantho, her companion. Rosie Hewlett’s adaptation breaks with the traditional interpretation of the end of the myth.

It makes Penelope take charge of her destiny, for once, and choose love over duty, rejection, remarriage, or any other condition that might have been imposed upon her.

This is most certainly a fitting conclusion to the tale, for it gives Penelope the power to decide over her own fate.

So, Was Penelope The True Hero Of The Odyssey?

Upon reading these works, to state that she was the heroine seems oversimplified indeed.

While it is clear that she does not represent your typical epic hero, which, according to Homer, is embodied in Odysseus, heroism can be manifested in numerous ways.

It can be seen in “raising a son in the dark of a coming death,” or “holding a kingdom together” in hostile territory, “speaking up for the oppressed,” or “standing up for yourself when the powerful men in your world say you have to,” in “seeing that Helen isn’t to blame for the war, for the death of men, the waste of treasure,” or “not making your children carry the guilt of their fathers’ sins,” or “comforting someone in pain by letting them know that they’re not alone,” or “even just being there.” Survival can be heroic, too. All of these are ways of showing heroism, and this is why Penelope appeals to me so.

Her twenty years were spent not waiting but preparing, making sure that whatever happened to Odysseus, she would have a home ready for him. If his journey was one of striving to get home, hers was one of keeping home.

As such, upon reading these different accounts of her life and experiences, I cannot think of her as simply “the faithful wife.”

She was a loving, strong, and capable woman who protected her home, her son, and herself, and who, after twenty long years, found herself liking the person she had become no matter what happened between her and Odysseus.

That is heroism.

I think that the lesson these later authors have given us is that we do not have to diminish the exploits of either Odysseus or Penelope, for while The Odyssey is indeed the tale of a leaving king, there was another one, being written all the time in Ithaca by Penelope, the heroic queen.