“Character analysis of Preludes”

The Penelopiad opens to the first-person narrator, Penelope the wife of the Greek

hero Odysseus, where quoting herself saying, “Now that I'm dead I know everything”

Penelope then goes on to say that this wish did not come true, at least not totally.

Penelope thinks, despite the knowledge it brings, is not worth the cost. She even says

that she would rather not know some of the things she has learned. In Homer’s “The

Odyssey”, Odysseus’ fancy and heroic adventures and Penelope, being the bad guy,

were highlighted, and we only know that Penelope is just a faithful wife to their

marriage where she resist the temptation, and hopelessly waiting for his husband.

However, “A Low Art”, through Penelope’s perspective discussed how Odysseus, her

husband, made a fool out of her by the versions of narrations about their relationship.

Penelope narrates how great Odysseus is in making fools for making people believe

with his versions of events.

Penelope is very eager to show the world how she felt compelled to tell her story

because she is unsatisfied with Homer’s portrayal of her and other myths about her.

That Penelope as a paragon of marital fidelity a serious and industrious character, a

devoted wife and mother, but one who lacks the fascination and zest for life that some

of Homer’s immortal women display. However, in the excerpt from The Penelopiad, “A

Low Art”, Penelope wanted to speak out the true version of her story.

Story telling is a low art for Penelope because stories have different versions for

different people. What some believe may differ from what others believe. Penelope’s

agony and pain were shown by “A Low Art” with her version of story keeping a blind

eye to achieve her happy ending. Her little story making is somehow to clear her side.

Moral theme on “Preludes”

The moral of this story is about gender inequality going on. Couples should not cheat

on his or her partner in life. It is also gender inequality because the husband is taking

advantage of Nenita by commanding her to do this and do that yet Nenita just follow

order even if her husband cheated on her couple of times. We should treat each other

fair and we should stand up and shout out what is right or wrong because this would

really affect our decisions in life.

Also, the message of the story is you should not cheat on each other, marriage is

sacred because it written in the divine law and you are committed with your desire

partner where God is part of each other’s relationship. If you cheated to your partner,

you could commit sin to your wife and to God and you will stay in hell to the rest of

your eternal life. We should not do this because we had a freewill to choose our

partners that be with us in our lifetime, it depends on how you would stay happy with

partner or not.

I learned that in life you should be careful who are the people goes and comes to

your life because maybe they the once who could help you or maybe they are the once

who could hurt you and destroy your life. Lastly it affects my appreciation in past and

present strongly because the past could make us who we are in the present so we

should appreciate it than regret it. The past builds our character and self so that we

could be the best self and show to the others that the past is not really a bad thing at all,

but it only shows how we adapt to the problem in the past. The past and the present is

directly proportionally to each other because without the past we could not live to

present. We must learn from the past so you could continue learning and improving

yourself in the present.

“Symbolic Analysis on Preludes”

 The main idea of this short story is infidelity. Under Philippine law, when a

woman is guilty of adultery, she commits a crime, while for a man, the crime is not

adultery but concubinage. In our country, there is one set laws for women, and another

set laws for men, which shows that laws in the Philippines are patriarchal in nature and

seem to favor men over women.

This double standard is not only seen in our laws, but in Philippine society as

well, where one set of rules seems to prevail for women, while another set of rules seem

to prevail for men.

This short story explores the issue of infidelity and how it affects the family.

Although there is only one perspective found in this story, there seem to be different

perspectives about infidelity that can be picked up from the actions and words of the

other characters. One should read this story closely as it carefully constructed to create a

particular conclusion at the end of the story