Penelope Silenced

by Esther Newman-Cohen

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Price

$1,029

Dimensions

19.800 x 19.800 x 1.000 inches

Title

Penelope Silenced

Artist

Esther Newman-Cohen

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

The theme of this work is misogyny (hatred or dislike of women or girls). In the epic Greek poem, The Odyssey by Homer, Penelope is faithfully awaiting her husband Odysseus's return from the Trojan War. She descends from her apartment in the palace to hear a bard singing. His song tells of the terrible and deathly struggles the Greek heroes are having in getting back home after the war to conquer Troy. Penelope, thinking of her own husband's travails, is upset and requests the bard to choose a happier theme. But no sooner has she spoken than her teenage son Telemachus instructs her, "Go then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for speech is a man's matter, and mine above all others for it is I who am master here". Telemachus, thus, silences Penelope's expression of opinions regarding the public space of the household and banishes her to manage the more inconsequential women's sphere of spinning and weaving. Nowhere in the ancient world did women ever have a recognized voice in public. Those who did speak out got ridiculed as being androgynes (men-women). See Mary Beard, Professor of Classics, Cambridge University
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2014/03/24/did-women-in-greece-and-rome-speak/

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July 1st, 2014

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