First published 2005
In Margaret Atwood's radical retelling, Penelope—the patient wife of Odysseus—finally speaks. Trapped in the margins of her husband's epic, she recounts the brutal truth behind her legendary faithfulness. Her twelve hanged maids haunt her narrative, demanding justice for their brutal execution. As Penelope deconstructs the heroic mythology surrounding Odysseus, she reveals a complex web of survival, manipulation, and silent resistance. Her voice emerges as a powerful counterpoint to the male-dominated epic tradition, transforming a familiar story into a fierce exploration of gender, power, and narrative control.
Genres: mythology, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, gender-studies, feminist-theory, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: gender-reversal, unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
198 pages · Hardcover · Canongate U.S.