way modern society has come to see women.The influential feminine roles in The Odyssey also have important effects upon the whole poem. It is in The Odyssey that such ideas as love, family loyalty, and devotion, and other such important ethical attitudes, are illustrated. It is the presence of these unconscious moral lessons that makes The Odyssey so unique to its genre. In a way, The Odyssey is not just the tale of the wanderings of Odysseus. The poet has made it, also, into a sort of "catalogue of women," in which he examines women of all kinds and from all walks of life. These feminine portraits are almost always objective and fair; Homer never made judgments, and each of these women has a certain appeal. It is interesting, however, that the woman who is most worthy of respect and affection is not a mortal. Homer seems to comment that no human being could develop herself in this way. His admiration for Athena is made even more evident by the fact that she, and not Penelope or another woman, is the heroine of the poem and the sole companion and confidante of Odysseus. It is only in our modern world that women have been given the opportunity to fully utilize their talent and ability, in order to become equal and contributing members of society, like Athena seems to be.In Sakuntala women are portrayed to play more of a subservient role than they were in The Odyssey. Even though the women in The Odyssey are looked upon merely as someone to cook and clean and bear the children, they play major roles in the poem. In Sakuntala the women play no major roles in the poem, at least not anything like the women played in The Odyssey. Sakuntala herself plays a very demeaning role being forced to do all the chores, the gathering of food, and the manual labor around the house. This is much different than in The Odyssey where the man was the one who did most of the chores, brought home the food, and most of the manual labor about the hou...
