Abstract

This paper discusses women and society’s double standards against them and how Margret Atwood criticizes men through her characters. Atwood's “The Penelopiad” cross-examines the venerated wife Penelope and the maids to depict the subject of male violence and other misconducts against women. Uplifting the maids whom Odysseus kills, Atwood queries sisterhood's confines and the need for transparency, voice, respect, and justice for the overlooked female victims' powerful males have terminated. Atwood’s novel signals a change in feministic philosophy from collective action to individual narratives. The Penelopiad re-appropriates the prevailing cultural myths to expose a detailed and nuanced view of a woman's meaning.

Highlights

  • Women and societal double standards against them is a topic that has brought about endless discussions and writings in contemporary society

  • The premise of women remaining faithful to their husbands gives room for men to commit adultery

  • "Margaret Atwood’s Postcolonial and Postmodern Feminist Novels with Psychological and Mythic Influences: The Archetypal Analysis of the Novel Surfacing." Acta Neophilologica 50, no. 1-2 (2017): 5-24. Rape is another act of sexual double standards portrayed in the novel

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Women and societal double standards against them is a topic that has brought about endless discussions and writings in contemporary society. Women serve as wives to help upkeep their men's reputations and perform other domestic duties. Atwood uses multiple characters to show how double standards of society disadvantage women. This paper discusses society's double standards against women and how Atwood criticizes men through the characters of the novel “The Penelopiad". The paper discusses primary double standards of power relations, sexual double standards, double oppression, double loyalty, double oppression, double roles, and double standards of justice.

Power relations
Sexual double standards
Double loyalty
Double standards of justice
Traditional narrative double standards
Double oppression
Double roles
CONCLUSION
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