Comparison of the "The Penelopiad" and "The Odyssey"

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Comparison of the "The Penelopiad" and "The Odyssey"
"The Penelopiad" is drawn upon "The Odysseus" with a changed narrative, background, and course of action. The story is unchanged; Odysseus is on his adventurous journey like he was in the epic, and his wife is at home waiting for him. However, Homer composed his epic from the king's point of view, while Atwood wrote the novel from the queen's angle of viewing things throughout the story. Atwood's "The Penelopiad" retells the story of the "The Odyssey" from the victims' point of view, highlighting the feminine heroism of Penelope and the injustice done with the twelve maids using similar literary devices, affecting the reader's anthropological perspective of Homer's epic.
"The Penelopiad' reveals the story of Odysseus's adventures through the lens of his distressed but tolerant wife, Penelope, and her twelve victimized maids. In the novel, they live in Haden as dead, where Penelope is still waiting for her husband, and the maids comment on her narrative. Unlike "The Odyssey' it does not comprise a series of adventures to show the heroism of Odysseus and his daring voyage back home after Trojan War. Instead, it indicates the life of his wife, who handled the matter in his absence with bravery, wisdom, wiles, and patience. The reader knows that while Odysseus was struggling through a Mediterranean cruise, the heroine held down his palace and managed with the disrespectful suitors with the help of her twelve maids, who pretended to manipulate the suitors only to save their royal masters and their royalty (Atwood 14). In the end, the story reveals Odysseus's inability to judge her acting and the faithfulness of the maids whom he mercilessly murdered (Hauser 110). Penelope's plight in "The Penelopiad" glorifies her faithful waiting in "The Odyssey," while dead maids recollect the lack of morality in "The Odyssey."
Atwood made her novel "The Penelopiad," a classical drama using the literary devices used by Homer in "The Odyssey." In Homer's epic, Atwood raises the heroine and the dead maids after hundreds of years of their death. She assigns them the role of the chorus, similar to the role they performed in "The Odyssey," to lyrically sign the doggerels, lamenting song, envious song, d drama, sea shanty, mock trial, anthropology or love song, interrupting the narrative. For example, when Penelope relates the story of her childhood, they remember their painful childhoods in the chorus, "we too were children", born to "wrong parents' who were in contrast with royal families (Atwood 15). The novel drives its format from ancient classical literature. However, "The Odyssey" had a chorus consisting of young males and females, using the twelve maids as characters (Grado 5). In other words, both pieces of literature use the same literary device using different elements.
"The Penelopiad" takes the reader into the palace for an insight into the experience of Penelope and the twelve maids; in contrast, "The Odyssey" identifies the reader with different islands, making them appreciate the adventures. Penelope inside the palace has a dual course of responsibility; she looks after the court matters while raising her only son Telemachus alone. All the ...