Zach Goldsmith

Ms. Zen
English 9A
12/7/2018
The Need for Redemption

Justice is subjective. One can think that an action is just while another can view that same

action as unjust. We want justice in our daily lives, as without that justice, we feel powerless.

Justice is fairness and without justice we lose a part of the motivation in carrying out our lives.

Throughout the novel, The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood, the maids express that they never

have power, especially in Odysseus’s punishment for them sleeping with the suitors. More than

two years ago, the monumental #MeToo movement was born. The progressive social media

campaign encourages men and women to relay their stories of being sexually harassed through

social media. The purpose of the campaign is to prevent the same atrocities from ever happening

again. Similarly, throughout the novel, The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood, the maids express

their continual lack of power, especially in Odysseus’s punishment for them sleeping with the

suitors. Also, the maids, like the victims of sexual assault, continue to fight in order to achieve

justice. Although the maids send Odysseus through constant unrest, Atwood conveys that the

twelve womeny ultimately do not ultimately achieve justice because they are still disrespected by

the spirits of the Underworldthe spirits of the Underworld still disrespect them.

Instead of having individual voices, the spirits of the Underworld group the twelve

deceased maids together and treat them like a single being. People tell the maids that they “[are]

motherless”, “[are] fatherless, “[are] lazy”, and “[are] dirty” (13). All the maids are thought to

have the same childhood, but this is likely a generalization. In their lecture, the maids demand

the “educated” men they are speaking to “discard the sordid part” (168). The rapes of the maids

are unsettling to educated minds now, but during The Penelopiad, the suitors believe that they

are educated minds, yet they still felt no remorse in raping them as they are “motherless” and

“fatherless”.
 Although Odysseus slaughters the maids in a less honorable way than the suitors, the

spirits of the Underworld place less attention is placed on the twelve hanged women’s deaths. In

Odysseus’s court case, the maids “[make] a spectacle of [themselves]” because the judge only

presses charges are only pressed against Odysseus for the murders of the suitors, not the maids

(177). This lack of charges against Odysseus makes the deceased twelve hanged women upset

because the judge did not even recognize them, even when he requests for the maids to “take

those ropes off [their] necks” (177)they had ropes on their neck. The judge also shows his lack of

knowledge of the maids when he said, “it says right here—let me see—in Book 22, that the

maids were raped” (179). Instead of being able to recall how the maids were hanged for having

sex with the suitors, the judge must look in The Odyssey to certify Odysseus’s motive.

Odysseus constantly runs away from the opportunity of confronting the maids to redeem

himself. Odysseus’s defense attorney in the trial against the suitors “[calls] upon grey-eyed

Pallas Athene” to spirit “[his] client away in a cloud” (184). Instead of facing the Furies head on,

Odysseus reverts to a similar method of calling on divine help to get him out of sticky situations.

Additionally, Odysseus never stays put in Asphodel but instead “goes off again”, and again

“making a beeline for the River Lethe to be born again” (189). In these new lives, the Greek hero

becomes “a French general”, “a Mongolian invader”, and “a film star” who all die brutal deaths

(189-190). The maids end Odysseus’s lives in tragic ways because they do not want to allow the

Greek icon a hero’s death and to show him what it feels like to have life unexpectedly ended.

When Odysseus can choose to redeem himself, exit the brutal cycle of rebirth, and justify the

maids by confronting them, he chooses to run away from his problems and be born again.

Although the maids do not receive justice, they are able to keep Odysseus in a state of

constant unrest. Odysseus wants to stay with Penelope in Asphodel, but the maids “make him
nervous” and “restless” (189). Odysseus’s nervousness and restlessness shows that he

feelsOdysseus feels guilt for what he did to the maids as he cannot even face them. Even

centuries laterAlthough Odysseus has tried everything in his ability to get the maids to stop

following him, the maids will not quit following him because “it’s not enough for [them]” (190).

They “can see through all of [Odysseus’s] disguises” and “[follow him] like a trail of smoke”

(192). The maids do not feel justified and will not feel justified until Odysseus faces up to them

for his severe mistake.

While Odysseus and Penelope think that the maids have received justice, the only ones

who can determine that are is the maids. The maids repeat throughout The Penelopiad that they

did not receive justice, as they were wrongfully punished and did not have a proper burial. In a

similar light, victims of sexual harassment do not achieve justice because many Americans tend

to focus on the few false accusations of the #MeToo movement and ignore the many true cases.

Likewise, this ignorance is comparable to the spirits of the Underworld who ignore Odysseus’s

involvement in the death of the maids and instead remember Odysseus’s heroic acts in the Trojan

War and on his journey home to Ithaca. Additionally, the #MeToo movement uses social media

like the maids use the chorus lines: as a medium to spread their stories and the need for justice.

Even though progress is being made towards a more equal world for men and women, sexual

harassment continues to happen, and will not stop until the perpetrators of these terrible crimes

confess. Then and now, not everyone will achieve justice, and those in power will ultimately

retain their authority.In a similar light, the United States government claims that African

Americans are looked upon the same under law to whites, but groups such as Black Lives Matter

disagree, and continue to fight against racism and for their rights. Then and now, Justice will

always be subjective, and those in power will ultimately retain their authority.