The Penelopiad

Even in the afterlife, Helen continues seeking attention from men and hurling jabs at Penelope. She still uses her beauty for validation, expressing that sharing it is charitable and absolves her of her responsibility for taking so many lives. Penelope is more frank in the afterlife. While alive, she would merely cry at Helen’s jabs, but now she returns the favor, accusing her of “washing their blood of [her] hands…making up for all those mangled corpses” (155), “I hadn’t realised you were capable of guilt,” (155) she concludes, finally rattling Helen. Still, Helen gets the last word, asking after the men Odysseus killed on Penelope’s behalf, “satisfied…that the total was puny compared with the pyramids of corpses laid at her door” (156). “Maybe you even felt prettier,” Helen concludes, asserting her superiority in looks and devotees, before sauntering off.

As Penelope waits in the women’s quarters, Odysseus succeeds in the bow test “thus winning [her] as his bride for the second time” (157). Then, of course, the slaughter of the maids commences. Penelope feels responsible for having not told Eurycleia, who picked the “impertinent ones,” (159) though of course they were encouraged to be impertinent by Penelope, in order to gain the trust of the Suitors and be more effective spies. Still, her position as a woman makes her powerless. “I bit my tongue. It’s a wonder I had any tongue left, so frequently had I bitten it over the years,” (160) she says. She has no means of retaliation and cannot even admit her own scheme and subsequent grief. Any suspicion that she was colluding with the maids would implicate her. She is at Odysseus’ mercy, a man whom she barely knows.

Atwood does not leave the guilt purely to Penelope, though. Penelope voices the suspicion that perhaps Eurycleia knowingly sent the maids to their deaths, out of jealousy of their closeness to Penelope, and a desire to re-assert her dominance. Atwood therefore gives the nurse more agency and cunning than any mythical account might give, and emphasizes that there is no single, definitive account of these myths.

The structure of the anthropology lecture allows Atwood to dive deeply into a cultural analysis of the murdered maids, while still maintaining a wry tone. The maids are able to explicitly voice the implied feminist symbiology in their murder. In saying they were a ritual sacrifice, or the symbol of the overthrowing of patriarchy, they are expressing that their death was much more meaningful than The Odyssey and its usual interpretation would imply—their murder is more than a by-product of male power struggle but are deep symbols of shifting gender roles, or even an important religious rite. Ultimately, however, though these theories may give their lives and deaths more meaning, it also avoids their humanity. As they conclude, “You don’t have to think of us as real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We’re not more real than money” (168).

In the aftermath of the maids’ murders, Penelope is once again nervous to come face-to-face with Odysseus, his true identity revealed. It is a repetition of their wedding. As she stated, he won her hand a second time, and just as before, she is nervous that he will be disappointed.

When they do confront one another, in Atwood’s telling once more, Penelope is more clever and self-aware than The Odyssey implied. Her remove and suspicion is not due to ignorance, but knowledge of his identity and desire to foster the impression that she has treated all impostors with remove and suspicion. She also gives him the infamous “bed test,” in this telling, to continue to tease him, only calling it a test to placate him and massage his ego. As they rejoin one another and describe their various adventures, it is clear that Penelope has changed from their wedding night. Though this mirrors that first night together, with Odysseus telling charming stories and swearing his admiration and love for her, she does not fall for his charm this time. Penelope is also performing her dedication and love for him, saying they were now both “proficient and shameless liars” (173) who only told each other they believed each other’s tales.