The Penelopiad (2005)
The Penelopiad is a 2005 penelope (greek mythology) book written by Margaret Atwood.
Penelope has spent three thousand years as the good wife, the faithful one who waited while Odysseus wandered. Speaking now from the underworld, she tells her own version: the girl married off at fifteen, the dazzling cousin Helen who outshone everyone, the twenty years of holding Ithaca together and fending off suitors. Margaret Atwood threads the account with a chorus of the twelve maids hanged on Odysseus's return, who refuse to let their deaths pass unexamined. The tone runs from wry to bitter, a myth retold from the floor rather than the throne.
Quick answers
What is The Penelopiad about?
Penelope has spent three thousand years as the good wife, the faithful one who waited while Odysseus wandered. Speaking now from the underworld, she tells her own version: the girl married off at fifteen, the dazzling cousin Helen who outshone everyone, the twenty years of holding Ithaca together and fending off suitors. Margaret Atwood threads the account with a chorus of the twelve maids hanged on Odysseus's return, who refuse to let their deaths pass unexamined. The tone runs from wry to bitter, a myth retold from the floor rather than the throne.
When was The Penelopiad published?
The Penelopiad was published in 2005.
Who made The Penelopiad?
The Penelopiad was written by Margaret Atwood.
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Explore The Penelopiad guides
The Penelopiad in our writing
- Companion guide: Ancient Greece
- Companion guide: Greek Mythology
- Companion guide: Mermaids & Sea Myth
A few thoughts on The Penelopiad
The stage musical Hadestown works the same seam, handing Greek myth back to the people it usually treats as scenery, with songs for Eurydice and the underworld's laborers. For a screen retelling of the Odyssey's homecoming that keeps the weight of what waiting costs, seek out the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which relocates the wandering to Depression-era Mississippi.
Ancient myths retold with real interior lives
Atwood pulls Penelope out of Homer's margins to give her the interior life the epic denied, and these retellings do the same for other stories: Saint Seiya recasts Greek gods as warriors, Saiyuki reworks the Journey to the West, Dororo draws on Japanese folklore, Secret of the Nagas humanizes a Hindu deity, God of War remakes Norse myth as fatherhood, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? moves the Odyssey south.
Old folklore turned into modern pop spectacle for a new generation
The Penelopiad takes a three-thousand-year-old story and repackages it for a modern reader without losing what made it myth. Ne Zha 2 does the same with Chinese legend as blockbuster animation, KPop Demon Hunters turns Korean folklore into a girl-group fantasy, Shrek mashes up fairy tales into a wisecracking cartoon, and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir borrows zodiac-spirit folklore for its teen superheroes.