Behind every
man’s success is a
woman but they say that a woman is also the cause of man’s
ruin. What is it in a woman that is the downfall of men? We have heard and read several stories about how a man was destroyed or killed because of a woman. Truly, in the early years, woman is perceived as the weaker sex with no more purpose than to serve a man; but in all of the stories we’ve heard, strangely, behind that delicate form is a cunning and dangerous being which equals that of a battalion. Is woman really the cause of man’s ruin?
In Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic poem in 24 books attributed to the poet Homer, speaks of a woman’s role. It was probably composed in the 8th century bc. After the fall of
troy at the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus is forced to wander for ten years before returning home to his
wife Penelope in Ithaca. This story has a lot of women characters who each played an important role in Odysseus’ life and influenced his decisions. Penelope, his wife struggled to maintain her loyalty and affection as well as the integrity of her household during Odysseus’s long absence. She was depicted as resourceful and intelligent as her husband. Penelope was a picture of a woman with whom any man is
willing to do anything to keep her or to get her. In this story, Penelope was wooed by a lot of suitors and all of them are willing to kill her husband Odysseus just to win her heart. Odysseus on the other hand was willing to endure sleepless days and nights, dangerous adventures and fights in strange lands just to get back home to his wife. The tender Calypso, the sinister and beautiful sorceress Circe, the singing Sirens and the charming Athena has made Odysseus’ travel both difficult and victorious. This play shows that a woman can have a different face – wise, cunning, sinister, temptation, love, hope and death – a man just has to be wise enough so as not to be fooled.
Agamemnon, in Greek mythology, is the king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. He was the son of Atreus and suffered the curse laid on his house. When the Greeks had assembled in Aulis for their voyage to Troy, they were held back by adverse winds. To calm the winds, Agamemnon sacrificed his
daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. Artemis is a goddess of hunt and was known to be a friend and protector of youth especially young women, but in this scene, we saw that in order to please the gods Agamemnon was willing to sacrifice his daughter and his daughter in turn just submitted. In as much as Agamemnon would have objected it would be futile because sacrificing his daughter would be a test of his loyalty and respect to the gods. After a ten-year siege, Troy fell and Agamemnon returned in triumph to Mycenae. With him came the Trojan princess Cassandra, who had been awarded to him by the victorious Greek army. Now this picture would have already made a man’s life complicated – sacrifice his daughter for the gods to help him, received a princess as a reward – losing one to gain another and then eventually killed by his own wife. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon''s wife, greeted him with protestations of love, but while he was in his bath she killed him with the assistance of her lover, Aegisthus.
The above examples show that it is a woman that’s behind every man’s success. Woman is not really that cause of man’s downfall, it is love and passion that destroys a man.
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