The Penelopiad

While the gods of ancient Greece have always been portrayed as flawed creatures, in Penelope’s account, they are described as nothing more than hedonists and sadists. They are described as unable to “keep their hands or paws or beaks off mortal women, they were always raping someone or other” (20) and Penelope says the “the gods were never averse to making a mess. In fact, they enjoyed it…there was something childish about the gods, in a nasty way” (24). When, in her prophetic dream, her sister’s image refuses to tell her anything about Odysseus, she says “so much for the gods not wanting me to suffer. They all tease. I might as well have been a stray dog, pelted with stones or with its tail set alight for their amusement. Not the fat and bones of animals, but our suffering, is what they love to savour” (124). She also says that she pictures “the gods, diddling around on Olympus, wallowing in the nectar and ambrosia and the aroma of burning bones and fat, mischievous as a pack of 10 year olds with a sick cat to play with and a lot of time on their hands” (135).

It is only the Fates and the Furies who are treated with any sort of reverence or respect. Odysseus says that the Fates are more powerful than the gods. It is the three Fates who twist the strands of the lives of the maids into that of Telemachus, and they who know whether the maids, if given the chance as children, would have killed Telemachus to save themselves. Telemachus, though he might wish for his mother’s death in order to gain the kingdom, dares not anger the Furies, who see mothers as sacred. Ultimately, it’s the Furies who are summoned by the maids and only they who are able to bring the maids any sort of justice. It’s they who haunt Odysseus, making all of reincarnations end poorly. Interestingly, both the Fates and Furies are women. In this book where women hold such little power, it is intriguing that only female divinities are shown to have real power.