. She neglects to explain why she would compare Penelope to Aristotle's ideas on the woman's role in society, or in what respect the biological findings of Hippocrates could have possibly have influenced or been influenced by Homer's epic. The only hint the reader is exposed to is when, on page 94 she asks, "To what degree does the world of the Odyssey prefigure popular Classical Athenian assumptions about women as moral agents?" The keyword here is "prefigure" and it indicates to me that Homer wrote before the classical writers that Foley uses as her basis of understanding the term moral agent. That the reader must figure that out based on one word out of a twenty page essay instead of being exposed to at least a small discussion of the chronology of when the authors and philosophers in question lived and wrote also detracts from the essay as a whole. Because Foley is trying to establish a framework based on historical and cultural ideas, that framework must be imbedded in a sufficient understanding of history itself in order to validate its meaning.
             In addition, I cannot but be aware of the fact that there is little direct comparison between Homer's epic poem and the outside works Foley uses, and especially by Aristotle. In fact, whenever she does make a direct comparison is when she discounts the relevance of the outside source. One of the few times the philosophies of Aristotle and Homer are referred to in the same sentence is when she says, "A closer look at Aristotle's assumptions about women as moral agents, however, makes clear that one cannot generalize so easily from Oedipus to Penelope" (Foley 93). Additionally, on page 99, she resists using the term kurios or guardianship (one she used to determine Classical Athenian opinion about women's roles in decision-making) because the passages "raise serious doubt about the exact parameters involved in male guardianship of a wife in the Odyssey." Another (and more constru...