What is a rhetorical analysis of the lion similes in book 4 of the Odyssey?

Extended similes are an important feature of
the Homeric style, as are epithets applied to people and places. Odysseus has several epithets,
but in book 4 of the Odyssey, Penelope twice refers to him as
"lion-hearted," connecting him with the lion metaphors which explicitly refer to both
of them.

The first and longestcomes from Menelaus, who refers contemptuously
and angrily to the cowardice of the suitors and says,

Even
as when in the thicket-lair of a mighty lion a hind has laid to sleep her new-born suckling
fawns, and roams over the mountain slopes and grassy vales seeking pasture, and then the lion
comes to his lair and upon the two lets loose a cruel doom, so will Odysseus let loose a cruel
doom upon these men (A.T. Murray translation).

The
comparison between Odysseus and the lion is heightened by the suitors becoming new-born fawnsthe
weakest and most helpless of creatureswho would not stand the slightest chance of escaping from
the lion, let alone facing it in a fight. The repetition of the phrase "let loose a cruel
doom" suggests that the two situations, in reality very different, are exactly
parallel.

Later in the same book, when Penelope is pondering her fate, she is
described directly by the poet as a lion surrounded by men:

And even as a lion is seized with fear and broods amid a throng of men, when they draw
their crafty ring about him, so was she pondering when sweet sleep came upon her.

This obviously links Penelope with Odysseus, though she is in some
danger, as is a lion surrounded by men. The contrast is still to the suitors' discredit, as she,
a woman, is still a regal lion compared with them and is to be matched with another lion, not
with a man.