In order to please Penelope, they have to be on par with Ulysses in showing the might of their bodies." This is an erotic desire to which she reacts, first, with seductive wiles of messages and promises, and then by inviting them to demonstrate their excellence, not in terms of wealth and social prestige, but in terms of something extremely personal and physical. And she does so because she responds in the same register to the desires of the men who have been awaiting her verdict for three years.
![penelope ulysses penelope ulysses](https://art.famsf.org/sites/default/files/artwork/thulden/3328201301890075.jpg)
Sissa discusses how Penelope gives her suitors the opportunity to demonstrate themselves as the best candidate for her attention. As she awaits his return, she crafts a strategy to deal with her suitors while also responding to her own desires.
#PENELOPE ULYSSES FREE#
The Odyssey allows room for Penelope’s identity free of being Ulysses’ wife. Italian philosophy historian Giula Sissa offers a unique perspective which supports this idea. However, it is important to consider the alternate perspective of Penelope entertaining, and even enjoying the attention of, her suitors. adding that she might take this opportunity to talk to Telemachus (which she will indeed do). she simply feels an unprecedented impulse to meet the men she so loathes. Usually the motives of mortal and god coincide, here they do not: Athena wants Penelope to fan the Suitors’ desire for her and (thereby) make her more esteemed by her husband and son Penelope has no real motive.
![penelope ulysses penelope ulysses](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/01/6d/a4016de1e9f8da988167a653742d0a69.jpg)
But because Athena wants her "to show herself to the wooers, that she might set their hearts a-flutter and win greater honor from her husband and her son than heretofore", Penelope does eventually appear before the suitors ( xviii 160−162) As Irene de Jong comments:Īs so often, it is Athena who takes the initiative in giving the story a new direction.
![penelope ulysses penelope ulysses](https://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w67/dei_consentes/Jueng/Juenger10156.jpg)
Penelope's efforts to delay remarriage is often seen as a symbol of marital fidelity to her husband, Odysseus. Penelope, bronze by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle