A Study on the Gender Politics of Maid Characters in The Odyssey: Power, Performance, and Survival

Abstract

This paper examines the maid characters Eurycleia and Melantho in The Odyssey, applying Michel Foucault’s concept of micro-power and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Drawing upon legal inscriptions, archaeological findings, and social practices of the Archaic period (8th–5th centuries BCE), the study investigates how gender and class intersect in the domestic sphere. It argues that Eurycleia’s so-called loyalty emerges from the internalization of patriarchal discipline and emotional labor, granting her a circumscribed “service-oriented agency.” In contrast, Melantho’s behavior, often labeled transgressive, reflects an improvisational strategy under structural violence. These contrasting trajectories reveal the literary mechanisms that reflect and reproduce gender-class hierarchies in ancient Greece, while also illuminating the limits and ambiguities of female agency within oppressive systems.