Women In Classis Texts
Classic texts can help us to determine how societies viewed certain topics at the era in which they were written. Throughout time women have had a struggle for respect and we are able to view this change in many classic texts leading up to our present day. Ancient Greek texts such as the poem The Odyssey, written by famous Greek poet Homer, creates an image of women in Ancient Greece, while The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written in the late 1800’s by Robert Louis Stevenson, shows how much respect women were given by the lack of female characters in the novella and C S Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe written in the early 20th century allows people to see a mans interpretation of women in a time which women were starting to gain the respect they have in our modern day society.
The Odyssey a poem by Greek author, Homer allows us to see how the Ancient Greeks viewed women. Seeing as this texts and others like it, all written by well educated Greek men, are one of only a few insights into Greek life we have, it is all we have to create an image of their lives, even though the text maybe bias.
Homer’s representation of women is constant throughout the entire text; he presents them to be very emotional and under the control of men. A lot of the women in the book have, “tears streaming from [their] eyes” (The Odyssey pg 341) or have emotional breakdowns; this depiction of a woman is throughout the whole poem and creates an untruthful image of a woman. Even though women do cry a lot more than men this point is exaggerated to make the men seem more rational. In The Odyssey many women are only there to provide for the men and do housework for the rich. A lot of women only appear to, “set food and drink” (The Odyssey pg108) and complete common household chores. These women serve the men and seem fairly content in doing so.
Women in Ancient Greece had barely any rights at all, they were...
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