Michal Golis (330988)

Mgr. Martina Horkov, Ph.D.

AJ 56011: Postcolonial and Feminist Rewritings of Master Narratives
3rd December 2012
The Penelopiad
In her relatively short novella The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood giv
es voice to the all-too-often neglected twelve maids, hanged by Telemachus on Od
ysseus command for their supposed betrayal of their master in order to disclose t
he double-standard prevalent not only in the epic itself but, as attested to by
the almost unanimous neglect among the scholars, also throughout most of the Wes
tern literary history. She shows what pains were taken and far-fetched theories
devised by those few to discuss the issue in order to portray the slaying of the
maids in terms of symbolism rather than acknowledging their humanity and the in
justice they suffered. Telemachus supposedly did not kill women but numbers and
symbols. The book, however, does not try to offer any over-simplifying strict bl
ack-and-white dichotomy of clear male dominance over women, providing instead a
whole spectrum of female characters differentiated by their highly divergent sit
uations and access to power.
In order to question the authority of the master narrative, Atwood s
tresses Odysseus cunningness as he is constantly moving on the line of d eceit an
d weaving an intricate web of half-truths which is to enter history as The Odyss
ey. The veracity of Odysseus adventures is further undermined by the sheer numb
er of poets offering their alternative, much less noble versions, underscoring t
he purely oral origin and thus the high likelihood of embellishment of the story
.
Penelope, albeit the book s narrator, by the same token, demythologi
zes her aggrandized proverbial faithfulness, herself throwing hints which cast d
oubt on the official story, while her own trustworthiness is put into question a
s well. She is probably the most ambivalent of the book s characters even though
, or perhaps because, it is primarily her version of the events that the reader
gets to read. Although she adamantly denies the rumours and allegations of her i
nfidelity widely circulating in songs and poems, she at the same time willingly
admits that both she and her husband were proficient and shameless liars of long
standing (173), wondering how they were even able to pretend to believe each othe
r at all. But if they did not, how can the reader?
Nevertheless, what the book really focuses on and is centered around
are the characters of Penelope s twelve maids, who Atwood sees as unjustly slai
n and even more so ignored in the discussion of Homer s famous epic. They are th
erefore given the privilege of providing commentary on their mistress depiction
of the events, serving as an ancient Chorus frequently interjecting in the nove
lla/drama in a divergent counterpoint to the main narrative. Their speeches reso
nate throughout Atwood s book (and the whole of Western history) as an accusator
y voice, constantly reminding Odysseus, as well as the complicit reader, of his
crime. They describe themselves as the ones [who were] killed, the ones [who were
] failed by the one who had the spear [and] the word at [his] command (6). While it
is obviously Odysseus they are primarily referring to, their song serves as an
accusation of all those who have ignored the unfairness of their shameful death
and who failed to recognize their nameless bodies for what they really were, shr
ouding them in the inherent ambivalence of words in a desperate effort not to se
e their blood.
In the master narrative itself, Odysseus seems to be knowledgeable o
f the fact that his maids were forced to sleep with Penelope s suitors, rather t
han willingly betraying him. He can be found saying: You have wasted my substance
, have forced my women servants to lie with you, and have wooed my wife while I
was still living (147). This is, nevertheless, apparently not such an issue beca
use of the maids themselves but because they represented Odysseus property, the
ir rape thus amounting only to a form of robbery. As Atwood points out, it was f
urthermore virtually impossible for the maids to do otherwise as they were not a

llowed to refuse to sleep with the noblemen, having been taught since childhood
to blindly follow the commands of their masters they might even have acted on Pe
nelope s command in this very instance. On the other hand, being aware of the ul
timate helplessness of their situation and numbed down emotionally, they learned
to take these relationships at least as sources of physical pleasure as well as a
doorway to the imaginary world of high dreams, tragic hopes and unfulfilled des
ires, even leading to a sort of attachment towards their crystallization in the
rich suitors.
Atwood s characterization is interesting also with regard to Helen w
ho, historically, has often been depicted as abducted and raped by Paris, lendin
g herself to being interpreted as a passive fetishistic object of masculine domi
nance. In The Penelopiad, however, she becomes a beautiful but extremely vain an
d arrogant femme fatale. She is not victimized but is rather shown to be a skill
ful manipulator taking pleasure in sacrificing men trying to win her heart unlik
e Penelopes twelve maids, in spite of being a woman, she is in the position of co
ntrol and influence. All of the above is, nonetheless, once again complicated by
Atwood s play with the reliability of the narrator. Is Penelope being faithful
in her portrayal of her cousin or is she merely trying to denigrate her, driven
by envy and personal rivalry? Admired and scorned, always written about but neve
r being given a chance to speak for herself, the character of Helen shows that h
aving real power necessitates having a voice of ones own.
Although Atwoods book exposes the double standards women are subjecte
d to, it does not fall into the trap of equating dominance with masculinity and
demarcating the concept of power strictly along the lines of gender, focusing in
stead on the power of language to influence, mystify, create and destroy identit
ies. It is on her multi-faceted female character where the process is most manif
estly visible.

Bibliography:
Atwood, Margaret. The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus. Edinburgh:
Cannongate Books, 2006. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2006. Print.