Week 4 - Primary Source Selection

  • Helen and Adromiche not int he Illead (not apart of the narrative)

  • Dispute over a prisoner of war

  • Discussion about Agamemnon took his loot that he deserves as apart of his conquering root

  • In the beginning of the Illead, cresues’ father is trying to ransom her back from being captured

  • This continues the theme in the myths of women being enslaved/prisoner

  • Actions of women are described with how they are perceived with men

  • Identities were transactional words men and women

  • Crises is trying to buy his daughter back from Agamemnon

  • Equate to the value of the person you were trying to buy

  • Creseitus has value even if it’s expressed in economic terms

  • Argument that picks off the entirement on the rest of the poem

  • Seen in the earlier lectures how men could have slaves to sleep iwth and that was socially acceptable

  • Captured women are concubines, domestic services with the person who captured them which is perfectly normal

  • None of the grekes have a problem with this until there is a oroblem with Apollo inflicting the plague

  • Argument that the prophet Calctius (seer) is that there’s a plague from Apollo becuase Agemmemnon is mad and the only solution is to ransom her (aka do what is asked in the first place)

  • Agamemnon says he doesn’t want to be the onmly one with a captured woman

  • The idea of the male rulers’ prestige is VERY important to the Illiad as a whole

  • Reflects how entitled men felt towards women, this idea of transactionality of how women have value only has objects

  • Agamemnon throws a massive tantrum over getting what he can’t want

  • Women are perceived as another posession of the ruler

  • From his tantrum, we get this overmephasized sense on the rankings of the commanders and the distribution of the looted property

  • Achilles says give up your girl so we don’t die from the plague and you’ll get more once we win the war

  • Girls are perceived as posessions, objects

  • Creseus has no lines, nor says anything and is only talked about by her father and the person who kidnapped her

  • No consideration in the Illead about women

  • “sexy lamps/prize” - objects that are traded back and forth by the characters are what women defined as

  • More going on with Achilles and Percheus

  • Achilles is very upset

  • Percheus is unwilling to be taken away by Agamemnon’s men - characterized clearly

  • When Achilles’ boyfriend is killed, Perseus is very upset and gets to make a speech on how she liked him and sa he’s dead

  • Perseus is still thoght as an economic item

  • We learn more about Perseus as a person and not just as an object with no feelings

  • The amount of agency you have as a woman goes up particularly to your social study

  • Penelop shown to be clever, cunning = you’re more likely to be a background character if you’re a lower status woman

  • Names of the mothers related to the names of their fathers (creseus and —)

  • Female goddesses are actively monkeying with the war (Athena tells the other Gods not to stab Agamemnon)

  • Word choice is very destinct when describing gods or goddesses

  • Parallels between Apollo and Achilles

  • Penelope has a say in who she chose to married

  • Penelope’s epipthet (nickname represent qualities) - Periphron which means “playing all the angles” thinking around the problem

  • Other descriptions of Penelop are similar to the ones lied to Odysseus

  • tricky and sneaky

  • Many tricks up his sleeve

  • Irony how Penelope is perceived is so good yet is so scheming

  • Penelop being manipulative (making false promises in order to get them to do stuff for her) is portrayed as a good thing that she should be doing

  • Penelope’s dual identity is being spoken about (beautiful but crafty and cunning)

  • Similar to Odysseus’ character

  • Deception and conniving is always seen as a positive trait in Greek mythology compared to irl where it’s not seen as good

  • Most things that Penelop is doing is connivin g

  • Still has some social responsibilities to not be mean to certain men because they’re high ranking to society

  • High class inability to choose thier quarters, speaking to the misuse of power that despite having all of the noble men in the world to choose from, she is still in another world of struggle

  • Two different spheres of women within the epics

  • Huge theme in the Odyssey is proper behaviour of individuals and hosts

  • The monsters that Odysseus meets is bad hosts, with the hosts thinking that Odysseus’ team is bad guests (xenia) which governs all of those rules

  • She only realizes who Odysseus is when she proposes the challenge regarding the bow and hte arrow