The Odyssey: Penelope, the Bow Contest and the Suitors (Books 19, 21, 22)

The rule broken from the other side

You have already met xenia in Books 9 and 10, where the question was what a host owes a guest, and where a host failed spectacularly. These books turn the same rule around. Odysseus has been away for years, and in his house a crowd of men have installed themselves as guests and behaved as no guest should: eating their way through another household, refusing to leave, and pressing his wife to remarry. That is the other great breach of hospitality in the poem, and it is what makes these books the second half of one argument rather than a new topic. What follows has a shape worth holding: a breach, a return, a recognition, and a reckoning. Odysseus comes home, is known before he is announced, and then acts. The question your specification actually asks is about that last step, and it is a genuine question rather than a settled one. One practical note first: as with the earlier books, do not memorise quotations from anywhere but your own edition, because more than one translation is permitted and the wording differs.

Words for the homecoming

Five terms for this half of the option. The first three are the themes reserved for these books.

Match the theme to what it names

How the suitors break it

The suitors are guests in Odysseus's house. In what way does their behaviour break the obligations of hospitality?

• They take far more than was offered and will not leave, which are the guest's obligations rather than the host's
• They fail to receive strangers properly into the household
• They refuse to honour the gods who protect travellers
• They do not break it, because they were admitted to the house

The same rule, two sides

Set the two halves of this option against each other and the poem looks like one argument rather than four episodes.

Which two are the guest's fault

Select the TWO failures that belong to a guest rather than to a host.

• Consuming a household's resources far beyond what was offered
• Staying on in someone's house long after any welcome could be assumed
• Harming the strangers who have come into your house
• Offering a welcome in order to trap those who accept it

From breach to reckoning

Put the stages of these books in order. Each is a step in one argument rather than a separate event.

• Guests install themselves in the household and break what a guest owes
• The absent head of the household returns, unrecognised
• He is recognised, in stages, before he is publicly announced
• A contest with the bow settles who he is in front of everyone
• The suitors are killed, and some of the household with them

Is it justice, or is it revenge?

The last stage of that chain is the hardest part of the poem and the part your specification most wants you to think about. The suitors are killed, and the killing extends to members of the household, including enslaved people, who are punished for their part in what happened. That is stated here once because these books cannot be discussed without it, and this module will not describe it further. What matters for your exam is the question it raises, and it is a real question rather than a settled one. On one side it can be argued that a serious wrong has been answered, that the household has been restored to its proper order, and that the poem presents the outcome as the correct one. On the other it can be argued that the scale of what happens goes beyond the wrong, that those with least power in the household suffer alongside those who chose to be there, and that many readers find the ending difficult for that reason. Notice that both of those sentences say it can be argued. Your job in an answer is to weigh the question, not to announce the answer, and that is true whichever way you personally lean.

The sentence that delivers a verdict

Three of these sentences weigh the question. Select the ONE that delivers a verdict as though it were a fact.

• It can be argued that the household is restored to its proper order by the end.
• The ending is straightforwardly unjust and no reader could think otherwise.
• Some readers find the treatment of the household difficult to reconcile with the idea of justice.
• The narrative presents the outcome as the restoration of what was taken.

The chain in a sentence

These books follow one shape. Guests break what a _____ owes by taking more than was offered and refusing to leave. The head of the household achieves his _____, returning to a place that has changed. He is _____ in stages before being announced, and the contest with the bow settles his identity publicly. What follows is a _____, and whether it counts as justice rather than as revenge is a question to be _____ rather than answered.

A paragraph that weighs it

A question asks how far the ending of the poem can be called just. Here is a paragraph that would score well. The case for calling it justice rests on the fact that the suitors had broken the obligations of a guest deliberately and over a long period, consuming a household that was not theirs and refusing to leave when its head was believed dead. On that reading the reckoning answers a wrong that nobody else was in a position to answer, and the narrative does present the household as restored by the end. The case against rests on scale and on who suffers. It can be argued that the response goes considerably beyond the offence, and that those with the least power in the household are punished alongside those who chose to be there, which many readers find difficult to reconcile with the word justice. A reasonable judgement is that the poem presents the outcome as a restoration while leaving a modern reader with a question it does not itself ask, and that noticing the gap between those two things is more useful than deciding which is right. Notice three moves. Each case is attributed rather than asserted. Both are given at similar length. And the judgement is about what the poem does rather than about what the reader feels.

What recognition lets the poem do

Book 19 turns on recognition, and the specification names it. What does a recognition scene let a poem do that simply announcing a return would not?

• Let the reader know something a character does not, so that ordinary conversation becomes charged
• Delay the ending so that the poem reaches the required length
• Prove to the reader that the returning figure really is who he claims
• Allow the poem to leave out the events of the journey home

Judging the ending

A question asks how far the ending of the poem can be described as justice. Take the decisions in order.

• How should the answer open?
• You want to use the point about who suffers in the household. How do you phrase it?
• You want to say what the poem itself seems to think. How do you put it?
• The question asks how far, so a judgement is expected. What do you give?

Weigh the ending

Open your own copy of Books 19, 21 and 22. Write an answer to the question of how far the ending of the poem can be called just. Quote only from your own edition, if at all.

• Explain what obligations the suitors broke, and why they are a guest's rather than a host's
• Explain how that connects these books to the earlier ones you studied
• Explain what recognition contributes, and why the bow contest settles more than strength
• Set out the case for calling the ending justice, attributed rather than asserted
• Set out the case against, at similar length and equally attributed
• Reach a judgement about how far the word justice fits, based on what you have set out