We see her in relation to many people: her indifferent parents, her beautiful and insufferable cousin Helen of Troy, her unimpressed mother-in-law, her rambunctious teenage son, Telemachus, and most importantly, the twelve hanged maids. Rather than simply being Penelope, wife of Odysseus, she is revealed to be just as wily as her husband. Atwood collates a great many tales into one place to give the meek and patient Penelope a three-dimensional character. Published over fifteen years ago, and before the recent trend of retelling the Greek myths from female perspectives, Margaret Atwood’s 2005 work, The Penelopiad turns around everything we think about Penelope, whilst remaining true to the character written in Homer. She has her loom or sits by the window, waiting for her husband’s return. Penelope has been hailed throughout history as the loving, devoted, clever and faithful wife of Odysseus who waited patiently for twenty years for the return of her husband.
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