The Penelopiad Chapters xxv & xxvi Summary & Analysis

Chapters xxv & xxvi

Summary: Chapter xxv. Heart of Flint

When Penelope entered the hall where Odysseus waited after the murder of the Suitors and Maids, she pretended she did not believe the beggar was Odysseus. She wanted to make him wait in payment for making her wait, and she was trying to disguise her feelings about his murder of the Maids. Telemachus scolded her for not welcoming Odysseus warmly. Penelope continued to feign ignorance of Odysseus, hoping the hard-heartedness would assure Odysseus that she would never easily accept a man into her home or fall into anyone else’s arms. After Odysseus bathed, Penelope told Eurycleia to move the bed outside of Odysseus’s bedroom for the beggar. Odysseus became angry, thinking someone had cut through the bedpost rooted in the ground. Only then did Penelope act as though she finally recognized him, crying and embracing him. After they returned to their bed, Odysseus told Penelope of his travels, and Penelope told him of how she tricked the Suitors. They told each other how much they missed each other. Now Penelope thinks of how proficient and shameless they both were as liars. Odysseus then left again to purify himself of the Suitors’ deaths and to pacify Poseidon, which like all of Odysseus’s tales, Penelope thought, was a likely story.

Summary: Chapter xxvi. The Chorus Line: The Trial of Odysseus, as Videotaped by the Maids

The defense attorney begins speaking on behalf of Odysseus, claiming that murdering the Suitors was justified because they had been eating all his food, bothering Penelope, and planning to murder Telemachus. The attorney then argues the prosecution’s point that murder was an overreaction by claiming that the Suitors likely would have murdered Odysseus, and he asks the judge to dismiss the case. The judge agrees and then orders the ladies in the back to take the ropes off their necks and sit down. The Maids argue that the judge has forgotten about them and that Odysseus killed them too. The judge states that this is a new charge, but Odysseus’s attorney claims that as the Maids were his slaves, Odysseus was acting within his rights. The judge asks what the Maids had done, and the attorney answers that they had sex with the Suitors without permission. The judge then flips through the Odyssey and says that the Suitors raped the Maids. The defense attorney says that as these events took place three or four thousand years ago, he’s not sure what is true.

The judge then calls Penelope as a witness, who claims she was asleep but that the Maids told her they were raped. After the judge questions whether the Maids were impertinent, Penelope begins to cry. She explains how she cared for the Maids like they were her daughters and maintains that Odysseus was angry because the Suitors did not ask his permission before raping them. The judge points out that Odysseus was not present and so the Maids would have been forced to sleep with the Suitors either way. The judge then dismisses the case, saying he does not want such a minor incident to blemish Odysseus’s distinguished reputation. The Maids shout that they demand justice and call upon the Angry Ones. The Furies appear, and the Maids ask them to punish Odysseus on their behalf. The defense attorney calls on Athena to protect Odysseus’s rights and to take him away in a cloud. The judge calls for order, confused at the chaos that has ensued.

Analysis: Chapters xxv & xxvi

When Penelope greets Odysseus after he has murdered the Maids, the reliability of her perspective as a narrator is again called into question. For one thing, Penelope claims she was disturbed by the murders of the Maids, but she certainly didn’t act as if they were on her mind. She mentions several different reasons for waiting to recognize Odysseus, one being to convince him that she was not easily taken in by another man. However, Penelope’s need to project this innocent demeanor might suggest the opposite. Perhaps she was lying when she insisted she did not sleep with any of the Suitors. Her behavior also shows how Penelope still wants Odysseus’s affection, even though he just murdered her supposedly beloved Maids. Once Penelope does reveal that she recognizes Odysseus, she has no qualms going to bed with him, again showing she may not be as upset about the Maids’ death as she proclaimed herself to be. While Penelope has been telling this story in the hopes of rectifying the version of herself as the loyal wife, she still has tried to present herself favorably. However, some of her actions contradict her words. Penelope even refers to herself and Odysseus as shameless liars, showing how neither version of the story is exactly true.

As the Maids present the trial of Odysseus, the subjectivity of justice is on display. The crimes that the defense attorney accuses the Suitors of—eating Odysseus’s food and bothering his wife— seem rather petty when compared to Odysseus’s murder of them. However, the judge immediately dismisses the case. Justice, it seems, is not always objective or fair when left in the hands of humans. The Twelve Maids then begin to cause a scene in the courtroom to get the judge’s attention. The fact that the judge has not even heard of the Maids’ case shows how easy it is for the murder of twelve young women to go unnoticed, both in mythology and in a court of law. Justice, it seems, does not apply to women. The judge dismisses the Maids’ case, believing the murder of women should not be a stain on Odysseus’s status. Rather than being objective, the judge is biased in favor of the male hero.

The court case also demonstrates how poorly women are treated regardless of the era whether in ancient or modern times. The court case takes place in modern times, as shown by the attorney speaking of the events as happening thousands of years ago and the judge referring to the Odyssey. However, the attitude toward the Maids has barely changed. The attorney claims Odysseus killed the Maids because they had sex with the Suitors without permission, yet it was the Suitors who raped the Maids. Then and now, women are blamed for the actions of men. Rather than hearing the testimony of the Maids, the judge consults the Odyssey and then Penelope, but neither takes the Maids’ perspective into account. Then and now, women are not important enough to be heard. The judge gets hung up on the logistics of how Odysseus could have granted permission for the Suitors to have sex with the Maids. Then and now, women may be seen as property instead of as humans. They are under the thumb of men. The judge then dismisses the Maids’ case just as he dismisses the Maids as people.