Women, the Greatest Helpers

Na Ri Roh

Professor Eidson

English 2110

10 July 2017

Women, The Greatest Helpers

Men and women remain unique and different, each having their own unique roles. The roles that women play are described and prescribed in the literary texts mainly as helpers. Men get assisted by women often times in both the creation story and the fall in Genesis and Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. However, the roles depict and vary in many different events. Apparently, the settings and the roles of the men figures involved in each situation also differ from each story as well as the women. The reason for the creation of women in Genesis still continues in the Odyssey, but their characteristics and personalities depend greatly in their roles. In comparison to the women in Genesis, particularly Eve, and few female characters in the Odyssey would have distinct roles that they play, but at the same time, still sharing the same idea in the main core for the reason for their creation.

        In the creation of the earth, God created mankind in his image which is totally blessing (Schrock 18). The Doctrine of Retribution says if good is performed, a reward is to be followed. Of the greatest blessing God has given to the human, the sinful mankind breaks the grace for the sake of knowledge fallen from ignorance. When God created man, Adam, God thought Adam will need a helper (King James Version, Genesis. 2.18). For this reason, Eve was created when God put Adam into a deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs. Adam, when he was awaked, he called her woman (King James Version, Genesis. 2.21-24). “Woman was made for man, not man for woman” (Giles 6). According to the origin of the creation, Eve should be a help meet and loyal to Adam. However, the serpent breaks into their relationship. “The serpent was more subt[le] than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (King James Version, Genesis. 3.1). Eve, the ignorant woman, leaves great turning point in the history for human lives when the serpent is involved. The role of the woman in the creation story and the fall ironically depict the origin of being created. It is more heart breaking than heartwarming to be seen in somebody who is a helper in general. Eve was tempted by the serpent, which leads both Adam and Eve getting punished from the angry God. Although they are punished, Eve is still Adam’s helper. Giles stated that “a helper can be a superior, an equal or a subordinate. The Hebrew of Gen 2:18–20 implies an equal helper and thus is best translated ‘partner’” (6). Being one’s partner, “women find blessing in God’s work by bearing fruit as they orient themselves towards the home (variously defined)[,] so as to produce fruit through their [s]pirit-empowered calling to be a helper” (Schrock 18).

        In Homer’s Odyssey, both human females and non-human females are illustrated in the roles that women play. Odysseus’ wife Penelope, the princess Nausicaa, and Odysseus’ faithful servant Eurycleia depict the roles of women. Then, the goddess Athena and the nymph Calypso also depict ideas of women although they are not real humans. These female characters in the Odyssey reflect the ancient Greek values of helpfulness, loyalty, and cleverness. Athena is a character who represents helpfulness. At the beginning of the story, she offers advice to help Telemachus persuade the suitors to leave Ithaca. Murrin summarizes Athena’s act in the Book One and Book Two of the Odyssey that Athena disguise as Mentes and she does what she promised to do in the assembly. Athena stirs up Telemachus and gets him to act on his own. She does so with concrete practical advice as a helper (501). In a supportive idea of being a partner as mentioned in the Genesis, in Book One of Homer’s Odyssey, he describes Odysseus, a man with “his heart set on his wife and his return” to his home in Ithaca where Penelope spends her day weeping (16). Although she is in tears, the cleverness is shown in Penelope when she tells the suitors she will choose a new husband when she finished weaving the shroud for Odysseus’s father. In Ithaca, where Odysseus was absent, Penelope was reserved with the power that her husband had, in which the reason for the suitors wanting to marry her. The reason for Odysseus being unable to trip back to his home is because he is kept on the island of Ogygia by “Calypso, the bewitching nymph, the lustrous goddess” (Homer 1.17). Calypso is seducing Odysseus in a manner of sexuality. In Book Six of Homer’s Odyssey, Athena visits the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa in a dream which later leads to rescue Odysseus by a river. The helpfulness that volunteered to rescue Odysseus, Nausicaa has affected even greatly which in the end Odysseus successfully makes his trip back home. Back home in Ithaca, the female servant named Eurycleia is a good example of representing loyalty. Simply, she was just like a mother to Telemachus when he was little.

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