“What can a woman do when scandalous gossip travels the world? [..] I’ll spin a thread of my own.” —The Penelopiad, 3-4.

Over the years, many things about the Olympics have changed. The recent additions of skateboarding, breaking, and surfing have created more space for people to share their skills and celebrate more aspects of human agility. However, there is one thing which has stayed the same within the Olympics: a tradition which has carried on through time and place.

For the literary tradition, a similar pattern occurs in Homer’s two-millennia-old epic The Odyssey. This epic follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, trying to get home after fighting in the Trojan war. He’s cunning. He’s convincing. He’s, as Margaret Atwood’s Penelope puts it, wily, foxy — unscrupulous.

Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, waits at Ithaca for her husband to return. For twelve years she hears news about his whereabouts for the visiting merchant, the wild rumour, and from snippets of dreams. For those twelve years she is pursued by suitors to claim the palace’s riches and Penelope’s hand as a prize, all believing Odysseus will never return. Penelope’s known for her plot of telling the suitors she cannot marry until she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for Odysseus’ father. Unbeknownst to the suitors, she would weave by day only to undo it by night.

Yet, the events of the story are not Margaret Atwood’s focus in her 2005 adaptation The Penelopiad. The main power the Olympics carry is through constantly finding ways to do things better via questioning the past. Paul Christesen writes for the Olympics that the games had no weight classifications for boxing, nor safety protocols in chariot racing. Only male contestants were allowed to compete, and corporal punishment would be given to people who did false starts.

Of course, this is no longer the case. Atwood does not aim to rewrite the story’s events, but to find answers to questions the original proposes. Who was Penelope’s mother and father? When did she meet Odysseus? How would she view the world today, in all its challenges and achievements?

This is Atwood’s strength. How she combines her own research of Penelope and women in the Greek world with the original epic gives a reader a fresh glance into her character as someone fighting for respect and control over how she is perceived in her life and afterlife.

Just like how Homer made the story of Odysseus be remembered by transforming the otherwise oral story through a new storytelling form – the written word – Atwood interweaves poetic and dramatic elements into her prose, utilising contemporary techniques to bring a taste of fresh air to a story which has been told and retold over the centuries.

Atwood’s Penelope is not based on one story alone: she is the combination of heart, research, but most importantly questions. Atwood does not provide all the answers, but instead lets the game begin like a true Olympian as you put together the images and events, retelling Penelope’s story worthy of our modern times down to thread.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons