The Penelopiad (Final)

27  March 2017

Fort Worth, Texas

Dear Sophomores,

The purpose of Penelope’s retelling of her story in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, so well known from The Odyssey, is to debunk or demythologize the original story. And why not? Should we really overlook things such as servants and women being treated like commodities to be used, traded, given, and thrown away? And then to glorify such things by portraying the perpetrators to be virtuous, heroic men? These questions lie at the heart of Atwood’s treatment of the tale. Another word for what Atwood does in her novel is “deconstruction.” She deconstructs the story she parallels in The Odyssey to lay bare the unpleasant reality of an unacknowledged aspect of this revered poetic work: the abuse of power and the use of language to oppress.

“Deconstruction” is a post-modern school of philosophical thought that traces its origins to the French critic Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines Deconstruction thus: "To deconstruct is to take a text apart along the structural 'fault lines' created by the ambiguities inherent in one or more of its key concepts or themes in order to reveal the equivocations or contradictions that make the text possible" (iep.utm.edu). Deconstruction therefore is often used as a tool by its proponents to demonstrate that those in the culture who control language and determine artistic tastes do so for the purpose of legitimizing their own use of naked power for self-aggrandizement. Whether it’s imperial European and Western powers colonizing and maintaining control over the undeveloped countries of the world for their own benefit or men bullying women into subjection to serve them, the official channels of culture--the art, poetry, literature, and music that are officially sanctioned by the culture--are designed to help the dominant classes and groups to stay in power by promoting and disseminating biases in their favor. So the advocates of deconstruction would have us believe. Deconstruction unmasks the oppressors and their oppressive techniques in the hope that the established order can be overturned. Margaret Atwood’s novel seems to be inspired by this deconstructionist impulse.

So in The Penelopiad, Penelope seems to be relating her story in such a way as to lay bare the misogynistic male bias of the original. But there’s an added twist to Atwood’s tale, one that may be unexpected. I wonder if you caught it? As much as Penelope appears to be a champion for the lot of women, her own story is flawed. The opening paragraph of the story highlights Penelope’s unreliability as a narrator. That’s because Penelope also may have her own ulterior motives in telling the story as she does, some skeletons in the closet that she wants to keep hidden.

The key to unveiling her unsavory motives lies in the occasional outbursts of the hanged maids in the story. They act as a Chorus to punctuate Penelope’s story with commentary undercutting or deconstructing the credibility of Icarius’ daughter as just another pampered upper class oppressor who exploits those beneath her. You may have noticed that Penelope consistently bemoans the deaths of the maids as an accident, something she would have tried to prevent if she could have. Unfortunately, she falls asleep during the slaughter of the suitors, and Odysseus/​Telemachus kill the maids before she can save them. Both she and they, she implies, are victims of forces beyond their control. But the maids’ several appearances in the story imply something much more sinister: If Penelope was not directly responsible for their deaths, she was complicit with Odysseus in their murders. And so, they blame not only Odysseus for their deaths, but Penelope, as well. After all, their deaths guarantee that they will not be able to report to anyone Penelope’s possible acts of marital infidelity with the Suitors. Therefore, it’s in Penelope’s best interests that they be silenced. The maids’ occasional interference in the story is their attempt to get a fair hearing in circumstances in which the deck is still stacked against them.

Another example of a parallel story to The Odyssey can be found in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? In past years, my classes have been able to view the film, something not possible because of our time constraints this semester. However, if you ever have a chance to view it on your own, I’d highly recommend it. The film also contains elements of deconstruction, although the emphasis is somewhat different from the Atwood novel. Perhaps we can grudgingly admit in response to detractors that that old dead Greek dude Homer must have done something right to have his story continue to spin off in new directions that make it speak to each new epoch of history in different ways. As the negative sides in my classes might argue, the value of studying Homer’s work is its ability to generate impassioned responses and to keep renewing the conversation that underlies our civilization, keeping it alive and vital.

I hope that's helpful. What do you think?

Go Trojans!

Dr. C.

Ithaka

By C. P. Cavafy Translated by Edmund Keeley

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Literary Epistle: The Penelopiad

3 March 2017

Room US028

 

 

 

Dear Students,

 

Though unusual, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad belongs to a type of literary work that has gained popularity in recent times. Dubbed “parallel novel,” this kind of story is a spin-off, sometimes in the form of a sequel, written by a recent author, of a well-known classic work of literature. The parallel novel often contains elements of parody with satirical elements that make fun of its predecessor. Sometimes the new work merely pays homage to the work of the earlier author. In addition to novels and other literary works, such as plays and poetry, you are probably familiar with films that use the same strategy of paralleling well known stories, not as a film adaptation, but as an original story apart from the work that it parallels.

 

Probably the most famous parallel story inspired by the Odyssey is James Joyce’s Ulysses. The story takes place in one day--16 June 1904--during which the movements of protagonist Leopold Bloom around the city of Dublin correlate with Odysseus’ adventures. The tale also features a Telemachus figure, Stephen Dedalus, a young Dubliner in search of a father-figure, as well as a Penelope figure, Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife, a singer who is having an affair with another singer named Blazes Boylan, who, in turn, corresponds to Penelope’s suitors.

 

As we’ve said before, in one way or another, the Odyssey has influenced a number of other original literary and artistic pieces across the ages, but Atwood’s is the first that I know of to retell the story in exactly the way it does. A Canadian author who studied at Harvard and has authored highly regarded works, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood first published The Penelopiad in 2005. In an effort to address the masculine bias of Homer’s tale (the story mostly focuses on either Telemachus or Odysseus), Atwood takes as her narrator and protagonist Penelope, who speaks to the present-day reader as a shade in the land of the dead. In telling the story from Penelope’s point of view, Atwood also abandons the heroic tone and style of the Odyssey. In other words, she takes characters, such as Odysseus, Telemachus, Nestor, Menelaus, even the Olympian gods, who are portrayed as noble and larger than life in Homer’s story, and takes them down a notch so that they lose the glamor of the heroic treatment afforded them by Homer. In doing so, Atwood undercuts the notion that the heroic figures from the epic are more virtuous or noble than ordinary people. Characters whom we may find admirable from the Odyssey become less so because Atwood takes care to depict them in a realistic (as opposed to heroic or mythic) style that does not strive to hide their warts and blemishes but actually plays them up.

 

Atwood also gives voices to the twelve maids executed by Telemachus at Odysseus’ command after the slaughter of the suitors. She portrays them as the victims of life in a world in which they occupied the very bottom rung of the social ladder and in which they were treated no better than mere objects. By doing so, Atwood brings to the surface the darker side of the world that the Odyssey may gloss over. Whereas Homer’s epic portrays these maids as corrupt because they have slept with the suitors, Atwood emphasizes their powerlessness to have acted in any other way because of their station in life.

 

Atwood reimagines Penelope in a like manner. In retelling the story of what happened in Ithaca during Odysseus’ long absence, Penelope reveals things about herself that we would not recognize as belonging to the character we know from the Odyssey. It’s true that Atwood plays up Penelope’s cleverness, but she also includes surprising details about her heroine and how she managed her household in Odysseus’ absence and even how she managed the ordeal of being courted by the suitors. To bring this new perspective to Penelope’s character, the author consulted alternative sources to the Odyssey, myths and ancient stories that involve Penelope, that are either foreign to Homer or whose information about Penelope falls beyond the scope of Homer’s tale. Along with these alternate sources, Atwood consults her own considerable wit and fertile imagination to give us a story that may make us reevaluate Homer’s classic and to understand it in a new light.

 

I hope that’s helpful. What do you think?

 

From a parallel universe,

Dr. Carlson

P.S. I created the image at the top of the epistle using the words that the four groups in your class complied in your lists of the most important words in Chapter 1 on wordle.net. The words that appear most prominently in the graphic are the ones that were mentioned most frequently. Devote one of your three comments to naming four possible patterns in the story based on these words you chose from Chapter 1, "A Low Art." 
 

Literary Epistle: Odyssey 18-24

28 February 2017

Sophomore English
Room US028

 

Dear Students:

In books 18-24, the last part of “Odysseus on Ithaca,” both the patterns of the Odyssey and the arc of the story come full circle. In fact, we see Homer bring things to completion through the convergence of all the individual patterns into the complex tapestry, the Pattern of patterns, that we call "the story."

Coming of Age (Andra) We find several comments in these final books about Telemachus’ entry into manhood. One typical remark occurs in Book 19. As Odysseus in disguise finally speaks to Penelope face-to-face, he says, “’No women’s wildness here in the house / escapes the prince’s eye. He’s come of age at last’” (95-6). Telemachus’ actions in these books also reflect his maturity. Not the least of these would be the assistance he gives his father in the battle with the suitors. We also see him become nearly equal to Odysseus, his father’s true son, in Book 24, when Telemachus, Odysseus, and Laertes prepare to fight the suitors’ relatives.

Bards How is a man with a bow like a bard? The simile that Homer uses to describe Odysseus’s stringing of the great bow at the end of Book 21 evokes that question. The choice of this comparison suggests some intriguing connections between bards and archers, not the least of which is that they both deal out pain and hardship with their instruments. Hence, when the bard is at his best, his song causes us to weep, but to weep in such a way that it heals us. Apollo, the archer god, is also the god of song and the god of healing. Further, the final showdown with the suitors takes place on a feast day honoring Apollo and is executed mainly with Apollo's own weapon, as Odysseus's bow may literally once have been. It is also intriguing that it takes a bard, Phemius, to bring Odysseus to restrain himself and to show mercy, effectively bringing to an end the slaughter of the suitors, when he grabs Odysseus's knees and pleads to be spared.

Identity These books feature key recognition or discovery scenes: Eurycleia’s discovery of Odysseus’s scar in Book 19 and Odysseus’s announcement of his true identity to the suitors just after he slays Antinous in Book 22. The first, significantly, leads to the long digression that reveals the meaning of Odysseus’s name, given to him by his maternal grandfather Autolycus: “’so let his name be Odysseus. . . / the Son of Pain, a name he’ll earn in full’” (463-4). When he receives a wound from a boar on Parnassus (the mountain where the Muses live), he begins to earn his name. But the moment when he truly owns his name comes when he slaughters the suitors in his hall, just after he’s revealed that name to them. Notice the contrast between this moment of revelation and the one Odysseus reports in Book 9 when he calls out his name to the Cyclops. Whereas that moment results from a reckless impulse, Odysseus has carefully prepared for the revelation of his identity in Book 22 to take place at just the right moment. Finally, in Book 23, Odysseus dispels Penelope’s doubts about his identity by revealing the secret of their marriage bed: One post consists of an olive tree still rooted in the earth, a symbol of the vitality of their marriage. Sharing his pain, Penelope completes Odysseus’s identity as neither Circe nor Calypso could.

Nostos and Xenia  Again, the clearest moment of recognition for Odysseus is when he begins the battle for his home. When he reasserts mastery over his house and family, Odysseus can strip away all disguises. He reveals himself here because protecting his household involves protecting and preserving who he is and what he has become through his hardships and travels: the paragon of wisdom and self-command who has learned to control his belly. The suitors have violated the practice of hospitality by lawlessly disrupting the peace of Odysseus’s home and family. Since home, providing for the balanced satisfaction of the belly’s appetites, represents the place where human life can flourish, the suitors have outraged both the gods and men. In fact, by transgressing against xenia (hospitality), they’ve threatened the very order of the universe that Homer depicts in the tale. Zeus protects strangers and suppliants by consecrating the practice of hospitality because men who are away from home as they often are in Homer's world face the threat of losing their humanity and reverting to the level of beasts in the satisfaction of their appetites. Hospitality counters that danger by providing a substitute for home.  

Recklessness and Restraint Homer may be the first great sage of western culture to correlate self-control to wisdom. Since Odysseus’s return to Ithaca in Book 13, we have seen him exercising what we might call heroic self-restraint. In his own house, Odysseus suffers the abuses the suitors pour out on him when he’s disguised as a beggar. Odysseus must also resist revealing his identity to Penelope, especially when they talk face-to-face in Book 19. All of the effort that Odysseus puts into controlling his impulses is a sign of foresight, looking ahead to the possible consequences of making certain choices and performing certain actions. Significantly, when Eurycleia discovers the scar that identifies Odysseus, it happens in Penelope’s presence. One nuance about recklessness in the story might escape notice. Controlling recklessness does not mean endless restraint. There comes a time for release as well. In his epic, Homer dramatizes the importance of knowing when to maintain and when to relax tension as a safeguard against recklessness. As both Menelaus and Alcinous point out, “Balance is best in all things.” However, a question remains as to how thoroughly Odysseus masters himself or, indeed, whether anyone can ever achieve perfect self-control. In Book 24, when Odysseus violates Athena’s command and continues to attack the suitors’ relatives, Zeus has to intervene by dropping a thunderbolt at Athena’s feet to rein him in. It seems that Odysseus needs to make one more journey to polish his great, yet still imperfect, ability to practice self-restraint. And another journey is pending. Perhaps Odysseus’s relapse into recklessness here explains the unfinished business of his final journey to appease Poseidon. On his earlier journey home from Troy, he received an education that turned him from recklessness. But that education, it seems, won't be completed until he has restored complete harmony with the gods by spreading Poseidon's worship to a place in which the Sea God is unknown.

Since ancient times, some scholars have posited that Book 24 was not originally part of Homer’s poem but a later addition. They argue that Odysseus’s reunion with Penelope gives a fitting resolution to the story. Still, Book 24 does wrap up some other loose ends neatly. In it, Homer returns us to the Kingdom of the Dead for one final look at the suitors and at Achilles and Agamemnon fully reconciled to each other in death (thus bringing the story cycle begun in the Iliad to completion). He shows us Odysseus’s reunion with Laertes and disposes of the confrontation between Odysseus and the suitors’ relatives. With the intervention of Zeus and Athena, Book 24 echoes the opening sequence on Olympus in Book 1, with this difference: Zeus and Athena are now clearly allies in the cause of restoring peace and prosperity to Odysseus and to Ithaca.

I hope that’s helpful. What do you think?

Autonomously yours,

Dr. Carlson

P.S. I intentionally did not comment on one of the major patterns of the story: God-mortal interaction. In your responses to this epistle, I would like for you to offer your thoughts on how Homer brings this pattern full circle and weaves it into the other patterns at the conclusion of the story. Do this instead of the usual three takeaways and a question.