Cowardliness of Penelope
In the epic tradition, as in the Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is a Homeric leader who goes to the war and stay at an exotic land for twenty years. There is a woman behind him – Penelope, who is the loyal wife of Odysseus and the mother of Telemachus. She is a cunning, wise woman that undergoes the situations happen to her during the absence of Odysseus. In The Odyssey, Penelope has not seen her husband Odysseus for twenty years, and, mean while, she suffers the pressure from suitors who are trying to replace the position of Odysseus. In fact, Penelope is a woman with argumentative and complex characteristics – her wisdom and cowardliness. Her wisdom is illustrated when she delays those traitors while her husband is presumed death “It’s been three year no, almost four, since she’s been toying with our affections. She encourages each man, leading us on, sending messages. But her mind is set elsewhere” (Odyssey, p.345). Even though Penelope’ wisdom confirms her as a strong character, but her instinctive cowardliness has nevertheless compromised her wisdom.
Since Odysseus has not returned from the war for so long time and presumed death, those suitors want to get her remarried and occupy Odysseus’s property. Penelope lacks the power and familial protections to help her driving those suitors away from her house, where her weakness was gradually shown out. The scene that Penelope feels very bad about the content of a song that Phemius, a bard, is singing "you know many other songs to soothe human…but stop singing this one, this painful song that always tears at my heart…a man renowned in Argos and throughout all Hellas" (Book I, p. 340). Penelope just want the singer, Phemius, to keep silence and drinks. The other scene that Penelope becomes desperate when her son leaves her, she throws a bunch of questions to Medon "why is my son gone? There