Gender Testing In The Odyssey

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sex role and their relationship with each other. Penelope is portrayed as a strong, smart, cunning, faithful, and virtuous woman. Odysseus and she are very much alike in this way. He is a well-respected, honorable “hero” admired for his strength and courage. Both Penelope and Odysseus are heroes in their devotion to each other and in their smart and cunning ways of finding their way back together. Odysseus had to overcome many trials and tribulations to return home to her. His wit is shown in Book 9 when he tricks the Cyclops by saying his name is Nobody and when he comes up with the plan to get himself and his crew out of the cave by hiding within the rams. This can be compared to Penelope’s wit proven by her knitting and unknitting the shroud to keep off the suitors for a couple years.
Penelope could have slept with any one of those suitors, yet she chose to be completely faithful to her husband. This characteristic of absolute loyalty in addition to her cleverness ...

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This is a significant difference between Odysseus and Penelope and, in a larger realm, between the ideal roles of men and women. Homer portrays the ideal woman to be more sexually restrained than the ideal man. Penelope, for example, neither has an encounter with a man like Odyseuss has wirh Nausicaa, nor would she ever be described as having such sexual freedom as he has with Circe.
There are such aggressive sexual dynamics in this particular scene, and it is important to note that only Odysseus (or a man) could still be a hero afterward. Circe says to him, “Come, sheathe your sword, let’s go to bed together, mount my bed and mix in the magic work of love-we’ll breed deep trust ...

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