World Literature (Gilgamesh, The Odyssey)

Running head : WORLD LITERATURE

The Role and Portrayal of Women , Human and Divine , in the Epics Gilgamesh ' and the The Odyssey

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The Role and Portrayal of Women , Human and Divine , in the Epics Gilgamesh ' and the The Odyssey

There is a famous anecdote that is much used in the issue of gender relations . The starts with a teacher writing a simple line on the blackboard that says woman without her man is nothing ' The teacher then asked the students to put punctuations

marks within that line . A male student were first to go to the blackboard and put punctuations and his answer was woman , without her man , is nothing ' Then after that a female student , with a slight grin on her face , wrote woman ! Without her , man is nothing ' That anecdote was not only witty but it is also very profound as it talks about the ever vague issue of gender relations , especially the sub-issue of the role of women in the society

It appears that women are always on the losing side on the struggle between genders . The roles and the value of women in the society has been an issue since the early years of the first societies of the early humankind . As a source of evidence for this claim , we can review ancient world literature to have an idea of how the society of ancient times approach and view the issue of the role of women in the society . The reason for that is to help us trace if there are changes regarding the issue . For that matter , literatures that we are to employ should be belonging to the most popular and most widely-read

During the early times of one of the most developed among early civilizations , The

Greeks , Homer had written the epic poem entitled The Odyssey Another of the earliest known works of literary fiction from , this time from Ancient Mesopotamia , is the Epic of Gilgamesh ' These two epics are among the earliest known works of literary fiction in human history These two epics are in many ways unique . That is because women were highly incorporated within the narrative of these epics . What made that inclusion of women within the narratives is that women were in many ways disregarded during the early times . Other early epics would even be devoid of women characters in the story

We will start unearthing the roles of women one epic at a time . Divine beings such as goddesses and other mystical beings are no exception This essay would include all women within the two epics , may they be human or divine beings , or even if they are some hybrid between the former and the latter , and how did these women become a representation of the views of early civilizations regarding the issue of the place of women in the society

To start off , we will first dissect the epic poem of Homer The Odyssey ' and see how the epic provides a view towards...