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SO WHAT? What is Murray Smith & Atwood Teaching us about... (Jealousy …

- - - - Post Feminist Literature: undermine the myth that marriage automatically provides a grounding sense of identity,
      - many of the women feel the need to be loved and excepted by men before they can be happy with their own identities.
      - draws on a range of cliches
      - her final scram is an expression of rage and disappear directed at a society where women are seduced by romantic dreams and celebrity glamour and made to believe that these will bring happiness
      - just as Penelope does not confront her suitors or her husband head on, preferring to outwit them instead so the Penelopiad does not openly challenge or dispute the mythic narratives on which it is based
      - Myth of Marriage
        
        Penelope and Odysseus marriage bed is partly maid from a tree symbolising the continuity and permanence of their marriage
- - - - story telling: attempts to justify her decisions and make sense of the challenges that have come her way
      - provide the internal dialogue of how they cope with and react to these events
      - the voice Murry Smith gives to each women expresses the challenges that can be faces externally but also more significantly how difficult it can be to verbalise and deal emotionally with what happens to their security and self belief.
      - In Atwoods retelling of homeric myth "women speak" and what they speak of are not "hero's and incredible feats" but the "inhumanely human things" done in war time
      - the effect is to subvert (undermine) the archaic, heroic, masculine perspective of the source text by countering it with an ironic, witty, modern sounding female voice.
      - Atwood debunks the version of the story found in the Odyssey by suggesting a more prosaic (ordinary), less heroic alternative
      - The Hanged Maids Tales
        
        the maids increasingly interrupt the narrative of Penelope they denounce the inhumane things done to them by Odysseus and expose the partiality of Penelope's story
        
        the maids voices are witty and parodic, tongue and cheek but also plaintive and haunting
        
        they form a cores, linked to ancient greek drama and provide a polarity of perspectives
        
        Penelope's narrative is interspersed with snippets from the maids point of view with how they're treated
      - Atwood gives a voice to the voiceless victims of male violence.
      - rather than resisting the authority of her mythical sources, Atwood goes around it by probing them for what they leave unsaid
      - thus Penelope and Atwood "spins a thread of her own" on her mythical loom while the hero's of homeric myth are left to rebel (celebrate), womanise and slaughter outside.
      - Power or Containment
        
        the owls traditionally the keepers of knowledge, owls are the guardian of the underworlds
        
        Penelope says that she wants to scream out but when she does "she sounds like an owl" which refers to the fact that she knows things about the events that take place upon Odysseus return (these secrets must remain with her)
      - distinct purpose of clearing her name (Penelope
        
        the reader must question her motives and facts as she relays them.
      - Atwood suggests that story telling is a matter of perspective
    - - offers useful ways of getting around some of the pitfalls of being a women.
- - - - the maids increasingly interrupt the narrative of Penelope they denounce the inhumane things done to them by Odysseus and expose the partiality of Penelope's story
- - - - teenager represented by Mary. She is resilient and egotistical because of it - which is a weapon
      - Penelope - managing the farm is the motivating factor. Giving a characteristic Helen doesn't have - exposing Helen's short coming.
  - - - women may have been forced by gender to congregate and work together but this does not mean they would necessarily form close bonds or protect each other
      - Penelope describes herself as being alone
  - - - as the daughter of a naiad, Penelope has a close affinity with water, her way is not to challenge, but to find a way to get what she wants with cunning which is her wit.
- - - - career
      - sexality
        
        Bombshells emphasis sexuality at all ages
        
        Penelopiad; Penelope's proposed relationships with other suitors
        
        if there is two means of survival available to women in the Penelopiad "wit and clit" then Penelope relies mainly on the first, whilst Helen on the second.
      - maternal
      - Penelope
        
        "Penelope the duck" pg 28.
        
        "plain jane Penelope" pg 37.
        
        "i was smart, though... a plain but smart wife" pg 21.
        
        "second prize" pg 31.
        
        relies on her wit
      - Helen
        
        "intolerably beautiful" pg 33.
        
        "radient helen" pg 37.
        
        "a women who driven hundreds of men mad with lust" pg 22.
        
        relies on her sexual allure
        
        fist prize
      - the opening line "now that i am dead i know everything" is an engaging and appealing start to the story, with that as the narrative progresses Penelope builds her own voice as she becomes her own story-teller.