This makes me wonder about how much men take responsibility in the Odyssey, and how much they blame the gods...and if there are any  differences in this regard in comparison to the Iliad. 
 

Telemachus also says of Penelope in book one: "She neither rejects a marriage she despises nor can she bear to bring the courting to an end." 

If she is not at all interested in the suitors, why doesn't she tell them so directly? Why does she lead them on, and promise to to wed one of them when the shroud is complete, while unraveling it at night? Does she not have the authority to make her own decisions in regard to eventual remarriage? Is she indeed aware that Odysseus might be dead, and not wanting to close off her options in regard to taking another husband in the future? Is she indeed flattered - while also angered - by the suitors' attention? Does she, like Odysseus with Calypso, Circe etc. - perhaps hold ambivalent feelings in regard to being wooed by those she doesn't desire? 

Or is she simply stalling for time, hoping for Odysseus' return and waiting for Telemachus to come of age and perhaps find allies to help him exert authority against the suitors? But if so, why couldn't have said directly that she would not remarry, whether Odysseus was alive or dead? Or was it her duty to remarry, and thereby reinstute another king to Ithaca? (If she didn't remarry, would Telemachus be king?) 
 

One of the online Odyssey study guides says: "What does this weaving and unraveling symbolize? It parallels the conditions in the Ithacan state. It holds together  precariously and yet is falling apart." 

It also occurs to me that the Web as the Internet is capturing many of us, and that we spend endless hours here, sometimes very actively, but without really getting much done in our real lives. For some, lives become unravelled as a result of our "weaving" on the Web. 
 

In any case, he clearly gets bored with this indulgent, entrapped life and wishes to leave. But why isn't he determined earlier to build a raft and escape her clutches? Or did she prevent him from doing so? 
 

But I also have the impression that Calypso has a sudden personality change. What happens to her seductive, possessive and controlling tendencies? Does she suddenly just shift out of it into another self, at a reminder of Zeus' power? And what about her grief? If she was so deeply attached to Odysseus for seven years, letting him go must have been difficult for her. 

(LATER RESEARCH: From the Encyclopedia Encarta 
"Calypso  promised him immortality if he would stay with her, but she could not overcome his desire to return home. After releasing Odysseus, she died of grief.") 
 

NEW: Go to Calypso's Isle for More on Calypso!

Why does Poseidon hate Odysseus so much? Just because he is a Greek? What has Odysseus done personally to alienate Poseidon? (A later note: Perhaps the primary answer to this is revealed later, when Odysseus maims Poseidon's son, the Cyclops). And a related question: Why is Zeus also opposed to Odysseus? 
 

One of the study guides online says: 
"How are his changing shapes an explanation of the sea¹s nature to the Argives? (Achaeans, Greeks)? The sea, too, changes its shape.It broods, it has fogs, it raged with storm winds and waves; it can also be smooth and calm. Proteus and the sea are forever temperamental."

Also, throughout the Odyssey, the sea is the realm where Odysseus has many encounters with females - usually portrayed as seductive and dangerous. The sea is the realm of the feminine energies, which cannot be controlled and contained. 
 

Also, she drugs the men when they start to get angry and experience grief, so that they don't get carried away with their emotions. This gives the impression of Helen as a woman who does not want to face reality, or the consequences of her actions. Or perhaps she herself does not want to feel her own grief, anger and shame, because it overwhelms her. 
 

Hephaestus is crippled, feels spurned by his parents, abandoned by the gods, and is now betrayed by his  wife, Aphrodite. His entrapment of Aphrodite and Ares is indeed a means of gaining power and recognition, as well as humiliating those who have done him wrong. Maybe this indirectly is related to Odysseus, feeling abandoned by the gods during his recent captivity, and attempting to regain his power....also in indirect ways, "craftily" snaring others in order to meet his ends. 

Likewise, there is a contrast between Hephaestus' "net" and  Penelope's "web". The net or web is a means of attempting to regain power lost and to experience whatever triumph one can when in a subordinate role. 

This Hephaestus story also calls attention again to the theme of adultery. Odysseus has just committed adultery with Calypso, and Penelope is courted by eager suitors. Will she succumb to them? The audience however knows in advance that she will not. 

Ironically, however, in the story, the adulterer is the female, Aphrodite, and thus doubts are cast upon female fidelity. Yet in the Odyssey, Penelope is faithful, whereas Odysseus succumbs to affairs with both Calypso and Circe. 
 

I wonder if she made this decision only because she was concerned about her reputation and Odysseus' safety, or if she indeed is afraid of her own fantasies, and not quite ready yet for courtship. 

I think of the movie Broadcast News, and how near the end Holly Hunter refused to go away with William Hurt because of moral reasons. I was left me wondering if  there were other reasons for her refusal, related to her fear of intimacy. The same with Nausicaa. 

And I wonder if  Nausicaa later regrets that she distanced herself from Odysseus - whom she did not know was married - and did not have more time with him while he was there. Or does perhaps her interest in Odysseus awaken her longing for a man, and thus the process leading to her eventually marrying a more appropriate 
partner? And if so, how will another man stand up to the ideal that Odysseus has awakened in her? 

(And what about her comment, to the effect of "Remember, you owe your life to me." Is this just a desire to more acknowledgement and validation?) 
 

In this introduction to the Fagles' translation, Bernard Knox contrasts the character of Achilles to Odysseus. Achilles says to Odysseus in the Iliad, in both books 9 and 14: "I hate that man like the very Gates of Death, who says one thing in his heart...who stoops to peddling lies."

Granted, they would have then known he was not a possible husband for their daughter....but given that the bard sang stories of Odysseus' heroism, wouldn't they  have been likely to have viewed him as worthy of respect, and help him nonethless? In fact, they freely do give him the choice to go or stay, once they know who he is. 
 

Several thoughts:
1) Why does Odysseus weep continually when he hears the stories of the Trojan war sung by the Bard? Is he feeling the pain from those years that he previously suppressed? 

2) Would the Odysseus of 7-10 years earlier been so swept away by tears? Has he softened during his journey, and his multitude of encounters with women? 

3) Men openly crying, and especially expressing grief, appears to have been acceptable in ancient Greek times. And yet these were times of idealism in regard to the heroic male. What influenced the change since then....the taming of the male ideal on one hand, and yet the suppression of "feminine" feeling on the other?