#and odysseus AND penelope. who also suffers misogyny but is a high-class woman and part of the estate that keeps eurycleia as a slave)

[agnesandhilda]

I’m taking notes as I read (sections of) the penelopiad for class and one just says “EURYCLEIA SLANDER”

#bolo liveblogs #I'm just reading the assigned sections so take this w/a grain of salt but the way eurycleia is characterized here leaves a #bad taste in my mouth #she's so uniformly antagonistic and I think it causes some important things about her character (like the sheer power difference between her #and odysseus AND penelope. who also suffers misogyny but is a high-class woman and part of the estate that keeps eurycleia as a slave) #to get minimized #like yes eurycleia is absolutely complicit in the slaughter of the maidservants but are you sure it was just because she #hated them and penelope? do you have no other possible explanations? #and even if you are going to make her an antagonist (which is a fair reading if you want to hone in on the killing of the maidservants) #I think there are more interesting ways of doing it than making her a mustache-twirling villain