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The Odyssey is the product of a society in which the dominant role was played by men. In ancient Greece, just as in the whole of the ancient world, and in America and Western Europe until the last century, women occupied a subservient position. Society was organiz ....

Middle of Essay
.... its social and intellectual environment, one cannot help noting the great difference between the Odyssey and all other epic poems. No other literary work of this period, or of a similar cultural background, gives such a prominent position to women. No reader of the Odyssey can help having vivid memories of the poem’s outstanding female characters. There are many women in the Odyssey and all of them contribute in mean-ingful ways to the development of the action. Furthermore, they are treated seriously and with respect by the poet, as if there were no difference between his attitude toward them and his feelings toward the chieftains for whom hi ....