Aryan Manna
Michael Fournier
English 1102
30 March 2018
Thesis: The Odyssey was one of the earliest forms of writing that suggested that there should be women in power in association with men even though some societies in the past have tried to give power to women, the power given to them in the modern era is incomparable to those of centuries past.
Bibliography
King, Karen L. “Women In Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, Apr. 1998, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html.
Karen L King discusses the early history of Christianity and how women had an effect in its early days. She gives information about the history of Christianity in the first century it was founded. The author also discusses important women in the religion of Christianity and how the women helped support the religion. As they worked together, the believers in this message came to an agreement on the teachings of Jesus and they also agreed on one certain women's theology. Some of the ideas include: “Jesus was understood primarily as a teacher and mediator of wisdom rather than as ruler and judge… Direct access to God is possible for all through receiving the Spirit… Overcoming social injustice and human suffering are seen to be integral to spiritual life” (King). These are only three basic principles the women came up with and most of these principles can be seen in those that believe in Christianity today. The information in the article also provides information on how women at the time were undermined or their work in leadership. The author also mentions “the formal elimination of women from official roles of institutional leadership did not eliminate women's actual presence and importance to the Christian tradition,” showing that women had an important role in religion whether they were leaders or not (King). The author came to all their conclusions by completing an extensive research throughout a period of time. The source supports my thesis because it allows me to show the leadership of women in religion and societies that may seem more modern and more popular than the ancient Greeks and Babylonians. It also provides a history of Christianity benefitting greatly when trying to connect the Ancient world with the modern world.
Marilyn Katz, author. "Ideology and "The Status of Women" in Ancient Greece." History and Theory, no. 4, 1992, p. 70. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2307/2505416. https://www.academia.edu/21658169/Ideology_and_The_status_of_Women_in_Ancient_Greece?auto=download
The source above is an essay that delves into the condition of women in ancient Athens and tries to categorize the research within three subheadings. The heading of "Patriarchy and Misogyny" analyzes the history of patriarchy and misogyny from the thoughts of K. A. Bottiger in 1775 to the modern and feminist application. This section ends using a statement that suggests that a initial creation of an idea has to be based on the origin of its research. The second heading, "Women in Civil Society," looks into the specific flaws of late eighteenth and nineteenth century accepted norms. This section ends by discussing some of the most recent work in the field but it also conveys the message that most of the issues come from the root problem of race and sexuality. The last heading, "Race, Culture, and Sexuality," talks about the conditions of women in ancient Greece. An early report by Christoph Meiners in 1778 tried to organize the thoughts of culture and race with the status of women. This section also shows how the peoples of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had thoughts of ancient medical theory and that those people also generated race and sex as ideas of biological aspects, with reference to ancient Greece. The section ends with a debate of literature and the nature of homosexuality, and also marks that this discussion has joined questions that involve the female sexuality in both ancient and modern terms. This source supports my topic because it allows me to show how the modern conversion of women's rights and roles came about. This source also allows me to compare the ideas that the 1700s and 1800s had about women and their roles compared to the ideas in Greece. Due to history influencing literary texts, this source shows the history of a specific in Ancient Greece and some aspects can be applied to The Odyssey.
MENDELSON, EDWARD. "Why Odysseus Was Right about Persons." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 161, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 132-137. EBSCOhost, libproxy.ggc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=i3h&AN=125318978&site=eds-live&scope=site.
This source talks about how certain men in The Odyssey felt about women in their city. The author most notably talks about Agamemnon and Odysseus and how each was treated differently by their wives because they came back home in different conditions. Agamemnon had come back from the war and seen his wife with another man who had not gone to the war. He was later killed by his wife and her lover. Odysseus, on the other hand, comes to his city as a beggar for his disguise. He gathers information on the status of his home to avoid the fate that Agamemnon had to suffer when he came back home. Odysseus expected a big party and celebration for his homecoming, but he only saw suitors at his home trying to force Penelope to marry one of them. The source also shows that Odysseus was seduced by many women on his journey home, but he wanted to stay faithful to Penelope because he longed for home. The end of the source also talks about what each man looked for in a woman and the advice Zeus gave to the audience in the Iliad. The advice that Zeus gave included “We told him not to go to bed with Clytemnestra; we told him not to murder Agamemnon; we told him what the consequences would be; we even sent down the messenger god Hermes to warn him” to show that he had warned Aegisthus about his actions. This source is helpful to my topic because it shows the feelings that Odysseus and Agamemnon had toward their wives. This also shows that they felt a particular about women in the society and their conditions. The source also shows that the Gods knew what was going to happen, showing that even the Gods somewhat “controlled” the status of women in The Odyssey.
OLSEN, BARBARA A. "The Worlds of Penelope: Women in the Mycenaean and Homeric Economies." Arethusa, vol. 48, no. 2, Spring 2015, p. 107. EBSCOhost, libproxy.ggc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=102996496&site=eds-live&scope=site.
This source talks about the Homeric epics and how they show Greek women playing important roles in early Greek society. Conflicts over women, specifically Helen and Penelope, power many plots in the epics, and the female cast is large and encompasses powerful aristocrats, certain royals, palace servants, and slave women. The first excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at the ruins of Troy influenced investigations into the relationship of the historical Bronze Age and they prove the mythological world of the epics have been a source of lively controversy. This source also talks about how the epics largely show an Early Iron Age society that tries to be a representation of the fourteenth and thirteenth-century states of Greece. This source is useful to my topic because it provides information to how Penelope and women, in general, were treated in Mycenaean and Ancient Greece. This source provides insight into the history of women in a society in which they were not leaders. The author also provides research from the excavations in Greece that further supports the topic in providing further evidence from other sources. Overall the source connects to the other sources by providing history on the topic and it also provides some historical context on the city and the artifacts historians have found in Greece.
Scott, Michael. "The Rise of Women in Ancient Greece." ["History Today"]. History Today, vol. 59, no. 11, Nov. 2009, pp. 34-40. EBSCOhost, libproxy.ggc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=45086611&site=eds-live&scope=site.
This source starts by saying, “The sources that survive from ancient Greece are overwhelmingly written by men for men” to show a perpetual bias in the history books (Scott). The source provides writing on the surviving physical structures such as “temples, buildings and battle memorials” and how they are creations by men (Scott). Women's state in the Ancient Greek society is given to the modern century mainly by the historians and the most notable of these historians is Thucydides and in the fifth century, he wrote that women's greatest achievement is to be less spoken about as both praise or blame among men. The sudden change in women's roles inside the modern society has forced historians to take a new look at Ancient Greek women. The vastness of the feminine impact and insight brought itself to public eyes from the true power of the feminine gods to the public, governmental, and pious power female priests have within themselves. These specific transformations that came to pass were brought by the disastrous effects the Peloponnesian War brought upon and the conflict brought the general democrat Athens to a merciful position. Greek women began working outside the home as a response to an increasing poverty. One example in history was written by The orator Demosthenes and how he complained that women held occupations as “nurses, wool-workers, and grape-pickers” in the city of Athens (Scott). This main economic push was joined along with a great political change, a great disappearing curtain with the public and private sectors of life. Inside Athens, women appeared to take the stage in comedic discussions of sexual and political equality. Inside Sparta, women emerged as new landowners and started to portray themselves through training for both motherhood and athletics. Throughout Ancient Greece, new creative platforms for women became present and they were happily taken in response both directly and indirectly to the unknown globe around them. Overall this source is helpful to my topic because it relates to the other sources above by providing information about women in Greece and there is more context in the roles of women after the wars in Ancient Greece to further show that the history of a nation plays a key role in development of the culture and texts of a nation.