The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood’s work usually has a feminist slant, so it is no surprise that she chooses to reinterpret Homer’s The Odyssey, with a concurrently weepy and wily Penelope as the central character.
It is a fascinating idea, and Atwood researches around the myth to inform the reader of Penelope’s childhood and her kinship with the famed Helen of Troy – Penelope’s more beautiful and famous cousin. In fact, as Penelope tells her story from the Underworld (one of the nicer levels, fortunately) she runs into her cousin, still surrounded by suitors.
Penelope tells us of her childhood – the daughter of Spartan royalty and a Naiad, and how her father threw her into the ocean as a child. Fortunately she survived and went on to be won by the adventurous Odysseus as his bride. While Penelope feels that Odysseus may be a little indifferent to her, she is entranced by the tales of his adventures. Thus, she is devastated when the ever troublesome Helen starts a war that takes Odysseus away.
This is where it should start getting interesting, but Atwood skims too quickly over the years that Odysseus is away. We hear snippets of tales about his adventures – those immortalised in The Odyssey and much more mundane possible versions – but as is proper, the focus remains on Penelope’s story. The problem is – there is not much of it. We hear about how the suitors come and raid her lands and she uses the stratagem of the never-growing shroud – again reported in The Odyssey – but also how she uses twelve of her young and most attractive maids as spies. These maids are perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel. They are raped and misused by the suitors, and as Penelope never shares her plans with any of the other servants, they are promptly hanged by Odysseus upon his eventual return.
The maids act as a Greek Chorus, commenting upon the action of the play in verse, song and sometimes comic scenes. They are pitiless towards Odysseus who they haunt in the Underworld, keeping him running from reincarnation to reincarnation so that he does not have to face their accusing stares. They avoid Penelope too, so that she can never explain herself or expunge the guilt of their deaths for acting upon her orders. However, they do tell a slightly different story – one which briefly (and again only too briefly) suggests lascivious behaviour with the suitors.
While Atwood strives to make the maids a focus of the novel, they are in reality nothing more than phantoms hiding behind the scenes, haunting but not possessing the novel. And the weepy Penelope, in a struggle to act in accordance with her mothers instructions “Water does not resist. Water flows… If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does”, is an almost invisible character in her own story, which is still driven by the men around her. I cannot help but feel that I have still not gotten to know the real Penelope – perhaps the myth of her steadfastness and cleverness (all of which seem to be demoted as virtues by Atwood) was better after all.
It is a fascinating idea, and Atwood researches around the myth to inform the reader of Penelope’s childhood and her kinship with the famed Helen of Troy – Penelope’s more beautiful and famous cousin. In fact, as Penelope tells her story from the Underworld (one of the nicer levels, fortunately) she runs into her cousin, still surrounded by suitors.
Penelope tells us of her childhood – the daughter of Spartan royalty and a Naiad, and how her father threw her into the ocean as a child. Fortunately she survived and went on to be won by the adventurous Odysseus as his bride. While Penelope feels that Odysseus may be a little indifferent to her, she is entranced by the tales of his adventures. Thus, she is devastated when the ever troublesome Helen starts a war that takes Odysseus away.
This is where it should start getting interesting, but Atwood skims too quickly over the years that Odysseus is away. We hear snippets of tales about his adventures – those immortalised in The Odyssey and much more mundane possible versions – but as is proper, the focus remains on Penelope’s story. The problem is – there is not much of it. We hear about how the suitors come and raid her lands and she uses the stratagem of the never-growing shroud – again reported in The Odyssey – but also how she uses twelve of her young and most attractive maids as spies. These maids are perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel. They are raped and misused by the suitors, and as Penelope never shares her plans with any of the other servants, they are promptly hanged by Odysseus upon his eventual return.
The maids act as a Greek Chorus, commenting upon the action of the play in verse, song and sometimes comic scenes. They are pitiless towards Odysseus who they haunt in the Underworld, keeping him running from reincarnation to reincarnation so that he does not have to face their accusing stares. They avoid Penelope too, so that she can never explain herself or expunge the guilt of their deaths for acting upon her orders. However, they do tell a slightly different story – one which briefly (and again only too briefly) suggests lascivious behaviour with the suitors.
While Atwood strives to make the maids a focus of the novel, they are in reality nothing more than phantoms hiding behind the scenes, haunting but not possessing the novel. And the weepy Penelope, in a struggle to act in accordance with her mothers instructions “Water does not resist. Water flows… If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does”, is an almost invisible character in her own story, which is still driven by the men around her. I cannot help but feel that I have still not gotten to know the real Penelope – perhaps the myth of her steadfastness and cleverness (all of which seem to be demoted as virtues by Atwood) was better after all.
Labels: Feminist Literature, Margaret Atwood, Penelopiad
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