Postmodernist conventions:

- Skepticism towards grand narratives and truth

o Different layers of stories questions the credibility of Odysseus’ story (the
plurality of truth/ reality/ perceptions) + unreliable narrator?  gives voice
to Penelope & the maids (female figures in the Odyssey whose sole purpose
was to be character foils for Odysseus/ function as a didactic lesson for other
women + propagate values)
o Appropriation, collaging conventions to parody/ satirise/ question
o Metafiction, self-reflexive function
o Fixation on voices considered “other”/ marginalised
o Moral ambiguity dismantling metanarratives, morality, and identity (all
contingent on external worlds and subject to flux
o Private world (emotions, reputation, thoughts) severely impacts by the public
world (rumours, Penelope’s legacy) + imaginary world intertextual reference
to the underworld
o Polyphony of voices—questions/dismantles absolute narratives (mainstream
narratives, metanarratives)
Form

Quotes
“Penelopiad” Through the conflation of “Penelope” and “Iliad” in
the title of Atwood’s novel, she imbues equal meaning
into Penelope’s experience as that of Odysseus while
also providing Penelope with a voice to tell an
alternate story, simultaneously dismantling the
absolutist patriarchal narrative of heroism in the
Trojan War.
“Down here everyone arrives with a sack… words Through the symbolism of sacks compounded with
you’ve spoken, words you’ve heard, words that the emphatic anaphora/ tricolon of “words” even in
have ben said about you.” the underworld, Atwood highlights the permanent
impact of storytelling on an individual’s personal
world.

“Many people have believed that his version of
events was the true one, give or take a few
murders, a few beautiful seductresses, a few one-
eyed monsters.”
Atwood introduces the postmodern notion of plurality
of truth through constructing a polyphony of voices
and the repetition of ‘a few’, thus questioning of the
credibility of the dominant metanarrative glorifying
Odysseus’ courage established in The Iliad.

Through the metaphor comparing Penelope’s legacy

“An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other and identity to a beating stick, Atwood critiques the
women” female discipline and subservience promoted in The

“hadn’t I been faithful? Hadn’t I waited, and
waited, and waited…? And what did I amount to?
“It’s my turn to do a little story-making… strolling
beggars, blind singers, maidservants”
Odyssey when constructing Penelope as merely a
character foil for Odysseus and a means to propagate
restrictive gender paradigms through functioning as a
didactic lesson for other women.
The tricolon of rhetorical questions reflects not only
Penelope’s own questioning of <<>>but also Atwood’s
questioning of an <>
Through colloquial tone compounded with the
cumulative listing of groups with lower social
standing, Atwood reveals the power of storytelling in
providing voice and agency to the marginalised,
simultaneously highlighting the plurality of truth and
perspectives.