My Interpretation Of 'Would You Fall In Love With Me Again'

My interpretation of 'Would you fall in love with me again'

So I have seen a lot of interpretations of Penelope's stunt with the wedding bed, but I haven't seen anyone echo my own so I thought I'd share? This is just my opinion though.

I think that the wedding bed thing was not just Penelope's way of saying Odysseus is always her husband no matter how much of a monster he thinks he is. I think she was calling his bluff.

Because throughout Epic, Ody's arc has him becoming a monster to get back home to his family. In Monster, he explicitly gives up his humanity to make it back home. And for the majority of act two, he stays true to this conviction. He is a monster, and he is ok with this, because it is what helps him to get back home.

However, when he sees Penelope again, he loses his conviction. As he faces his sweet and gentle wife, the woman he has been dreaming about for all these years and placing upon a pedestal, he falters. Because he feels he doesn't deserve her now that he has become a monster.

So even though it breaks his heart, he pushes her away. He tells her that he isn't the man she once knew and he questions whether she would ever fall in love with the version of him that he has become. In all of his lyrics in this song, he expresses how she could never fall in love with him again after everything he's done. He plays the part of a martyr, willing to give up his one true love because she should not be forced to love a monster.

Now, Odysseus is a rather selfish character. I think we can all agree on this, yes? It was selfish of him to taunt the cyclops, selfish of him to approach Aeolus alone and to keep the windbag to himself, selfish of him to refuse to listen to Eury when they first arrived at Circe's, selfish of him to sacrifice six men to Scylla, the list goes on. He isn't afraid to do what he has to to get what he wants.

And Penelope knows this.

So she rejects him, and she does it in the most hurtful way possible - telling him to literally uproot their lives, that she can't stand him to the point that she wants every reminder of him gone, even if that means basically destroying their room by removing the bed. This was 'a symbol of their love everlasting' so by asking him to get rid of it, she is saying that she really never could fall in love with him again.

And Odysseus fights back, because he is still selfish. He still wants his wife to love him. Despite pushing her away, he actually can't stand the idea of losing her after everything he went through to get back home to her. He cannot give her up.

Penelope points this out to him. You are my husband. Do not try to say that you don't deserve me, do not try to shy away from me because of what you have done. Don't play the part of a martyr now, when you have martyred others just to get back home to me.

You are selfish. You are a monster. But I love you regardless.

Because Odysseus will always be her husband. And just the fact that he feels he doesn't deserve her proves that her 'kind and gentle husband' is still in there, somewhere. She'll help him to return to a place of love and empathy one day. But it's something they'll do together, not apart.

And I think that's beautiful.