Femininity Dominates Masculinity in Homer's The Odyssey

Epic poet Homer’s The Odyssey is considered the wife of his previous work, The Iliad. While The Iliad, with all its violence, war, ego, and competitiveness, with men taking center stage while women play one-dimensional side characters, largely focuses on central aspects of masculine identity, The Odyssey does exactly the opposite. This story about Odysseus, a Greek fighter in the Trojan War returning from battle, narrates his many obstacles he faces for on his journey, most of his obstacles being women. In this story, women take the front seats and Homer makes amends for his flat women characters in The Iliad by assigning each character in The Odyssey her own strengths and flaws, bravery and fears, uniqueness and individuality, desires and sexuality. They are more than just pretty faces and Homer makes many claims about femininity, power, and womanhood through his female characters, especially the nymph, Calypso. He conveys that while women and men are not exactly the same, that doesn’t necessarily mean one is better or more powerful than the other. It is evident the high focus on feminine energy and the large role women play as the epic starts off with an invocation, or Odysseus requesting the Muses to help him sing his story. In Greek mythology, the Muses are the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne and are personified versions of liberal arts such as literature, music, poetry, dance, astronomy, etc. As the Muses are representatives of the arts and sciences, the most fundamental subjects explaining our world and everything in and around it, it explains Homer’s view of nature, and possibly even the world, as something inherently feminine. The fact that this is in the very first line of The Odyssey, shows the importance of women in this story. Typically, in other ancient Greek epics, women play a small supporting role, and are rarely the starting point of the story. Odysseus’s reliance on the Muse to help tell Odysseus’s own story foreshadows his dependence on women, and Calypso specifically, throughout his entire journey.

Homer’s epic starts off mid-voyage with Odysseus on Ogygia, the island of the nymph, Calypso, who had been holding him hostage for seven years. When Odysseus landed on her island, she desired him and offered him immortality if he would stay with her. Odysseus, believing that in order to fulfill the human condition, one must die, rejects her offer, and Calypso, enraged, doesn’t let him leave until Zeus eventually commands her to. Calypso is first introduced as “a nymph, immortal and most beautiful, who craved him for her own” (I, 24-25). Her beauty is the first subjective characteristic that is described about her. This is not the only instance of this, as nearly every female character’s introduction mentions her appearance: “grey-eyed goddess Athena” (I, 63), “nymph with pretty braids” (I, 111), and “[Penelope] came, then, down the long stairs of her house, this beautiful lady” (I, 381-382), just to name a few. The Ancient Greeks valued beauty in every aspect of life, but there is a stronger emphasis on a woman’s beauty, as most male characters’ introductions did not mention anything of their appearance. In The Odyssey, a woman’s beauty not only is a large aspect of who she is, but also proves to be incredibly powerful, and even lethal for men. Calypso, as mentioned in Book I she “craved [Odysseus] for her own” (I,25), which contradicted the societal standard for women in Homer’s world. The phrase “for her own” implies a desire of possession. She doesn’t just want to be with him; she wants to own him. Typically, this would be the other way around. The men in Homer’s world viewed women as possessions, something to be fought over and won, while the women had no say over their own fate whose desires were not considered, a theme greatly highlighted in his former work The Iliad. Calypso takes a spin on this trope by being the possessive manipulator herself. Additionally, she didn’t just want or love Odysseus, she “craved” him, implying not just love, but also lust. Men being the lustful, possessive creatures, the pursuers, the fighters, the more powerful, while women are the pursued, is the norm previously conveyed by Homer. Homer takes a 180 degree turn with his character Calypso, making her an outcast, a rebel, a non-traditional woman and her deserted island in the middle of nowhere is indicative of that. Although the location of her island, Ogygia, is not explicitly mentioned, Greek philosopher Plutarch hypothesizes it to be a “five days’ sail from Britain, going westwards.” Regardless of the precise location, it is implied that Ogygia is distant from civilization based on how long it takes Odysseus to get to her island from his previous locations, therefore making her a literal outcast. Her physical detachment from society and from other women represents her “otherness.” Not only did she take possession of him, overpower him so much so that he hadn’t been able to leave for seven years, and that too because she was forced to give him up, but in addition, she did so for lustful reasons. She prioritized her own desires over his, which shows how Calypso viewed him more as an object than a human being. Homer, through Calypso, creates a unique character who defies all the unspoken rules of womanhood, who doesn’t need to be taken care of, and who doesn’t mind her status of being an outsider. He provides a new dimension of womanhood that has never been seen before in any of his works.

At first glance, due to her dominance, possessiveness, and lust, Calypso appears to be more like a Homeric man than a Homeric woman, however, a strong part of a man’s identity in Homer’s works is violence and the ability to be a brave and strong warrior. This is a large detail that separates Calypso from the average Homeric man—her lack of violence. Instead of physically overpowering Odysseus, she has a different kind of power. She is gentler with him. Athena later tells Zeus that Calypso “will not let Odysseus go, poor mournful man; she keeps on coaxing him with her beguiling talk, to turn his mind from Ithaca” (I, 75-78) in order to convince him to help Odysseus. To coax is to “gently and persistently persuade (someone) to do something.” Aggressiveness has always been associated as a masculine trait, while femininity considered to be gentler and nurturing. Due to this, masculinity and men are viewed as stronger while femininity and women are viewed as weaker. Calypso disproves this, as there is massive power in her gentleness. She doesn’t need to be physically threatening in order to have her whims satisfied. Interestingly enough, Odysseus doesn’t retaliate or do anything about it. Athena portrays him as “poor” and “mournful,” but he is a warrior on his way back from the Trojan War, the most famous war in Ancient Greek history. If he was sent to this war in the first place and was able to fight in it and make it back alive, he certainly has some degree of strength, intelligence, and resourcefulness. He could have fought her. He could have stolen resources from her to build a boat and escape. He could have done many things to better his situation. But he didn’t. This shows that it was not because he was unable to, but rather a choice. Why didn’t Odysseus take any action? Calypso’s power comes not only from her gentleness, but also her charm and enchantment. Homer conveys that a woman can be just as powerful as a man, but she doesn’t have to be powerful in the same way a man is. She has her own kind of power. The combination of her gentleness, charm, and beauty controls Odysseus not consciously, but subconsciously. He knows he wants to leave her island, that he doesn’t enjoy her time with her anymore, but can’t bring himself to leave because something about Calypso keeps drawing him to her. One of the things that keeps Odysseus from taking action to leave is her disposition. She doesn’t use violence, lash out at him, or scare him, which causes Odysseus to not see her as a threat. He is not worried about his safety and her willingness to take care of him and “love” him confuses him. He is not sure if he should leave or stay. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Athena tells Zeus that Calypso was using her “beguiling talk” against him. Beguiling is “charming or enchanting, often in a deceptive way.” Odysseus has been deceived, not through a misunderstanding or miscommunication, but at the intentional hands of Calypso. She doesn’t love him, she wants to possess him for her own lustful reasons. She intentionally puts up a false front of wanting to love and take care of Odysseus so he can let his guard down and think of Calypso as lovesick rather than dangerous. Although Odysseus had “fought shy of her and her desire, he lay with her each night, for she compelled him” (V, 162-163). Calypso, for seven years, had been using Odysseus to satisfy her sexual desires, and even though, he never was equally on board, he still could not bring himself to say no to her. This is not the first time Odysseus has been fooled by femininity and beauty. As he recounts his journey leading up to his landing at Ogygia, he had previously encountered the witch Circe. He rules her out as a threat, telling his sailors there is “no need for stealth” as she is “a young weaver singing a pretty song” (X, 249-250). Circe does end up to be dangerous as she turned all the sailors into pigs which she intended to eat. Calypso is also aware of how her beauty and womanhood is not perceived as a threat and uses this to her advantage. Athena is the only one who is able to see right through her and can tell Calypso is trying to “to turn his mind from Ithaca” as if Calypso has full control over him and that Odysseus is so vulnerable that he is not able to think or advocate for himself. Homer shows in Calypso’s character, that women are not necessarily powerful in the same way that men are, but are still able to wield great influence without having to get their hands dirty.

The only reason Calypso released Odysseus from her grasp is because she was forced to do so by Zeus, but before she does, she yet again defies the traditional unspoken laws of womanhood. Instead of blindly following Zeus’s orders, she argues back. Angered by the double standard, Calypso to Zeus’s messenger Hermes retorts “You hate it when we choose to lie with men…So now you grudge me too…But it was I who saved him” (V, 125, 135-136). In Homer’s previous work, The Iliad, the entire Trojan War was based on who was allowed to “keep” Helen. She was a possession to be earned, without regard to her own desires. Similarly, Odysseus is also a possession entrapped in a debate about who gets to “own” him. Calypso argues that Odysseus belongs to her since he came to her island and she saved him, “fed him, loved him, sang that she should not die nor grow old” (V, 142-143) therefore she has earned him. Meanwhile, Athena believes that the real owner is his wife Penelope. When Odysseus’s son Telemachus tells Athena about the many suitors that appear at their house to try to woo Penelope, how “they eat their way through all [they] have and…can demolish [Telemachus]” (I, 297-298), she replies, “Ah, bitterly you need Odysseus, then!” (I, 300). Athena reports this to Zeus because she was “vexed that he was still sojourning in the sea chambers of Calypso” (V, 7-8). She wants Odysseus to be home because she believes he has a responsibility to his wife and son, and because she is annoyed by Calypso’s behavior. She makes this decision for him without any regard for what he truly wants. Calypso believes she deserves to keep Odysseus because she found, saved, and took care of him, referring to her heroicness and altruism, while Athena believes he belongs to Penelope referring to his duty to his family his identity as a husband and father, not an individual. Although Odysseus does want to leave Calypso’s island to make it back home, and does end up getting what he wants, it was not done out of respect for him and his needs, but for what was decided for him by Athena, based on her values. Homer’s spin on the ownership and hero trope explains his view on how a man is also capable of being a possession that can be earned and be viewed as not an individual, but as belonging to someone.

Calypso is one of the most paramount characters in The Odyssey, as she not only defies the social norms of womanhood, but also creates her own. Women were not supposed to have sexual desire, yet she lusted after Odysseus. Women were supposed to be of service of a man, yet she held Odysseus captive so he could be of service to her. Even though she did take care of him, she did so for her own pleasure and desire, not for Odysseus. Odysseus stayed with her for seven years and even slept with her every single night even though he didn’t really want to. For a man as intelligent, strong, and powerful as he is, Odysseus turns to putty in Calypso’s manipulating hands. She holds immense power over him, but what is striking is that for the first time, there is power that comes not from violence and physical dominance, the stereotypical masculine type, but from gentleness, beauty, nurture, and deception. Instead of physically dominating him, she dominates him mentally. She is gentle with him, so he doesn’t see her as a threat. She is beautiful, and he gets distracted by her beauty. She takes care of him in almost a motherly fashion, making Odysseus think that she is someone he can trust and who has his own best interest in mind. However, this is all false. She craves him for her own lustful and selfish reasons and is able to get exactly what she wants for seven years without having to get her hands dirty. As Odysseus had been unable to leave for so long, the only reason he was ultimately freed was not because of something he did, but Athena pitied him, and more so his family. Athena wants Calypso to let go of Odysseus not because she wants to free Odysseus from his mental shackles, but because she wants him to fulfill his duty as a husband and father. This leads to the debate of who is the real “owner” of Odysseus—the woman who saved and took care of him for seven years, or the woman who married and had a child with him? Not once was Odysseus asked what he truly wanted. He is more like a pawn being played by multiple characters in his own story. Through Calypso’s unique character, Homer shows how a woman can be even more powerful than a man, but not in the same way. A woman doesn’t have to be like a man in order to be powerful, she has her own kind of power within her that although society tries to shun and stigmatize—hence her status as an outcast on a faraway island—can prove to wield great influence if she is aware of this power.