Throughout The Odyssey by Homer there are cases of impropriety that range from mild social gaffes to serious breaches of courtesy. It seems that the most obvious instance of impropriety, however, is shown throughout the majority of the novel by Penelope’s suitors. More than one hundred men have flocked to Odysseus’ kingdom in Ithaka and are trying to woo his wife Penelope away. The indecorum is not in this act alone, in my opinion, though it does seem presumptuous of the suitors to persist in their attempts to wed Pen�lop� when she so adamantly and obviously does not want it. One can understand that the master of the house has been away for over a decade and is now presumed dead; it would be reasonable for Pen�lop� to remarry, especially considering the status of women in this era.
No, the unseemliness here is in the behavior of the suitors. They are repeatedly rude to Tel�makhos. The suitor Ant�no�s exemplifies this with his comment in book 1, line 433: �Zeus forbid you should be king in Ithaka, though you are eligible as your father’s son.� This is a minor faux pas but it is still notable because it seems a highly rude comment to make to the son of a king, particularly if said son might be king himself one day.
In several places throughout the books of The Odyssey, it is mentioned that the suitors are making horrendous gluttons of themselves, �eating our house up� and devouring �all my substance and my cattle,� as Tel�makhos puts it in book 16, lines 146 and 149. So besides trying to marry a woman who does not wish to be married, these men are using up all the reserves of food, drink, and livestock that are at Odysseus’ home.
If the rude comments, the presumptuousness, and the veritable stealing of goods were not enough, the suitors also plot to kill their host, Tel�makhos. In book four, line 896: �Meanwhile the suitors had got under way, planning the death plunge for Tel�makhos.� This is the most extreme instance of impropriety that the suitors show. Discourteous talk may be forgiven or written off as the result of stress or misunderstanding, as can the waste of expendable commodities. However, concocting a plan of murdering someone, especially the son of the woman you hope to be your future spouse, is an inexcusable impropriety.
The second gaucherie that appeared noteworthy occurs in book 10 when Kirk� reacted toward Odysseus in what looked to be an inappropriate manner for a goddess. In line 363, �She cried out, then slid under to take my knees.� Through previous character interactions, Homer has made it clear that the embracing of knees is an act that signifies the embracer is less worthy than the embraced. A beggar embraces the knees of the person he is begging, a stranger embraces the knees of the land’s king, and so forth. That a goddess should drop to a kneeling position and hug Odysseus’ knees implies that she is less than him, a mere mortal.
The idea of a deity being preceded by a human is a disconcerting one, if not downright uncomfortable. That Kirk� should act this way seems like a breaching of the manners and accepted customs of the society of that time. Everywhere else in the book, the idea that gods reign supreme and are not domineered by humans in any way is enforced. Each god acts entirely out of their own free will within the hierarchy of the gods. That is to say, unless a god that is higher up in the hierarchy disallows a certain action, the god or goddess in question conducts his or herself as they will. The desires and needs of humans rarely come into play when a deity is considering their next action unless those desires and needs coincide with those of the deity. When Kirk� acts as though Odysseus is her better, she makes us reexamine the entire infrastructure of the hierarchy of beings in their world. A goddess, kneeling to a human? Admitting via her actions that the human is her superior? This does not mesh with what we have learned thus far in the book and it can be considered a worthwhile impropriety to mention.
There are a great many other actions in The Odyssey that could show unseemliness. If one analyzed the actions and words of the suitors alone, for example, one might find enough impropriety about which to write an entire essay. The two cases involving the suitors and Kirk� that I mentioned simply stand out to me.