43 pages • 1 hour read
Margaret AtwoodThe Penelopiad
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 26-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26: “The Chorus Line: The Trial of Odysseus, as Videotaped by the Maids”
This interlude from the chorus presents Odysseus’ actions, as weighed by a modern-day court. The defense argues that his slaughter of the Suitors was justified, as they were plotting to kill his son and would likely have killed Odysseus if he attempted to resolve the matter diplomatically. The judge moves toward dismissal of the charges (there seems to be no prosecution), until the maids interrupt, pushing for their murders to be introduced as a new charge. While the judge acknowledges the charge that the maids were raped, both the defense and Penelope argue that at issue was that no nobleman gave them permission to have sex with the Suitors, not did they give the Suitors permission to “use” their “property.” The judge concludes by dismissing the case, saying that the “client’s times were not our times” (182) and that “it would be unfortunate if this regrettable but minor incident were allowed to stand as a blot on an otherwise exceedingly distinguished career” (182). The maids then call upon the Furies to “inflict punishment and exact vengeance on [their] behalf,” (183) and haunt Odysseus for eternity, regardless of his form, in body and legend.
Chapter 27: “Home Life in Hades”
Penelope explains how the dead can become reborn by drinking from the Waters of Forgetfulness, though people often remember everything. While Helen often drinks, discovering the new fashions and causing trouble, Penelope refuses to do so. As she says, “my past life was fraught with many difficulties, but who’s to say the next one wouldn’t be worse?” (188).
Odysseus, meanwhile, is reborn all the time. He says that all he ever wanted was home life with Penelope, and, just as she starts to believe him and forgive him, he leaves again, to become someone else. Penelope attributes his inability to stay to the maids, who always lurk in the distance, making him “want to be anywhere and anyone else” (189). Still, in every new life, it ends badly: suicide, accident, murder, but it’s never enough to satiate the maids’ thirst for revenge.
Chapter 28: “The Chorus Line: We’re Walking Behind You, A Love Song”
The maids taunt an unnamed “you” (Odysseus), saying: “you can’t get rid of us, wherever you go: in your life or your afterlife or any of your other lives” (192). They say he never answered why he murdered them, but they say it was “an act of grudging, it was an act of spite, it was an honour killing” (193). They, the serving girls, are “here to serve you…here to serve you right” (193).
Chapter 29: “Envoi”
The book concludes with a short poem in the voice of the maids, who say “we had no voice/we had no name” and they “took the blame/it was not fair.” In retaliation, they will follow him, and the book concludes with them sprouting feathers and flying away as owls.
Chapter 26-29 Analysis
The trial of Odysseus as presented by the maids gives a dramatic interpretation of how the actions of Odysseus have been analyzed by critics and readers. It is, in a way, a representation of the court of public opinion. The defense points out logical reasons for the Suitors’ murders, arguing that it was an act of self-defense, and that it would have been naïve to think that offers of compensation for what they consumed would be honored, and that it was just as likely that in their great number, they’d simply murder Odysseus as they’d threatened to do to his son. As readers and critics have done for centuries, the judge indicates that the murders were justified. However, like the charges in this book itself, the maids interject with their own murders and asked that it be considered. The judge concedes that The Odyssey does acknowledge the raping of the maids by the Suitors, but the defense and Penelope point out that s raping servants was a common practice, and it was more an issue of the lack of permission to rape. The judge, with modern sensibilities, at first seems shocked and confused. Ultimately, however, the judge concludes that times were different and that the murders were a “minor incident” on an otherwise “exceedingly distinguished career” (182). It is impossible to read these words without thinking of how modern judges continue to use similar arguments to under-prosecute rape to this day, unwilling to convict young men for fear of “ruining” their lives. The maids fail to convince the judge, and by extension popular culture, of Odysseus’s guilt. Left with no further means of punishment by earthly means, they call in the Furies to haunt him even “in songs and plays” (183), hoping to mar his great heroic character. So, too, has Atwood introduced this maid-centric version of events, in order to call into question the actions of this supposed great man. She forces the reader to consider the position of the less privileged, and less male, characters in this and other tales.
Odysseus is haunted even as he takes on other lives after drinking the Water of Forgiveness. Penelope, too, is punished by the ever-present maids, as they keep Odysseus running away from them and her. As in life, she remains inactive, unwilling to be reborn herself, for fear of a worse life. So, she and Odysseus remain mostly apart, and whatever hand she had in the maids’ murder is punished by his continual absence. Meanwhile, true to her nature, Helen keeps being reborn, seeking more attention and passing pleasures like fashion and parties.
The book concludes with the maids’ assertion that Odysseus can’t get rid of them. They will continue to serve him, to “serve [him] right” (193) throughout his many lives.
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