In the Odyssey, we can constantly see how power affects the position of others in society. The Odyssey shows how who has power changes the level of society, who is equal and who is oppressed. In book 1 we can see how women are supposed to act and the jobs they are expected to do and hold. When Penelope complains about the music played by the Barter, Telemachus asks, “So, mother, go back to your quarters.” Take care of your own chores, the distaff and the loom, and make the women work hard too. As for giving orders, the men will see to it, but especially me: I hold the reins of power in this house.” This text shows readers the different gender roles that men and women play in the Odyssey. We can see that Telemachus demands that Penelope return to work at her loom, showing that women have little to no power in society and primarily serve men, who hold more power than women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Soon after, we can see Telemachus telling him to make the women work hard. Instead of talking about handmaids or servants, the text talks about women, implying that they occupy the lowest rank in the hierarchy. Through all of this we can see that men have more power than women because, as this suggests, Telemachus states that he will hand out the commandments even though Penelope is older than Telemachus. In Penelope, the distribution of power of a man over a woman impacts the societal order and affects equality by causing the lower class to suffer more. The 12 handmaids described in the Penelopiad can be described as suffering more due to their slave/handmaid and gender class than the upper class. In the Penelopiad it says, “Therefore the handmaids were overpowered and they were not protected at all” (Atwood, 180). This quote explains the reason why they were raped and then killed, because they were not protected from being raped by the suitors. This shows the injustice of class in that the lower classes are not protected by being harmed/raped by the suitors compared to Penelope or Eurycleia, who are never treated like the handmaids because they are part of the class superior. In the Odyssey, we see Telemachus hang the 12 maids for having been raped by the suitors. Telemachus declares: “You sluts, the whores of the suitors! ". This shows that they were punished for being raped by their suitors and for not having a choice due to their place in society as a lower class woman. In the literary canon, Emily Wilson, translator of the Odyssey, shows that her translation is a “new way of thinking about the Odyssey in the context of gender and power”. compared to all other male translations that show women as weak and powerless. In the article, he explains that most men who translate the Odyssey, such as Robert Fagle, often skip a certain adjective that describes Penelope's hand, while Emily Wilson keeps it. He states: “Homer describes his hand as pachus, or thick. » “There is a problem here,” Wilson writes, “since in our culture, women are not expected to have large, thick, or oily hands. » Translators have usually solved the problem by skipping the adjective or inserting something more traditional – Fagles mentions Penelope's "steady hand." Wilson, however, makes the moment.