Ancient practices such as crying while grieving are still used to this very day. In the epic poem “The Odyssey” by Homer, Odysseus is trying to return to his kingdom and his family. During the time that he is away, his wife Penelope is left to worry about her husband's whereabouts, fend off desperate suitors, and stay true all at the same time. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in her poem “An Ancient Gesture” sheds light on something that is often overlooked: Penelope's grief and tears. In doing this, Millay reveals that Penelope was the embodiment of ancient Greek values and that she was sincere. Millay does this so subtly by using poetic and literary devices such as imagery, metaphors, and repetition. To cry in front of a crowd is often times insincere, but to cry in private and then pull yourself together is an example of the utmost sincerity. Millay writes …show more content…
“And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day and undoing it all through the night.” While this quote obviously talks about Penelope’s weaving and unweaving of the fabric in order to avoid suitors, it doubles to reveal to the reader that Penelope wasn’t holding it together as well as she looked. Penelope’s weaving throughout the day is a metaphor for Penelope putting up a facade of her being okay with what was going on. Her unweaving the cloth was a metaphor for her falling apart at night and releasing all of the emotions she kept bottled up during the day. “And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light, and your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.” This is a metaphor for insomnia. Because Penelope would stay up at night crying and unweaving, it would make sense that she had insomnia. How could she have slept when she stayed up worrying for her husband? She couldn’t have; she was unable to sleep because she was plagued with