Comparing Telemakhos And Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

As I grew up, I would always hear comments from people saying that I look like my mom. One time someone even mistook the both of us as sisters….hahaha. I would get compliments from people saying that I grew to be smart and beautiful like my mom. My mom and I would both turn our heads at the same time to look at each other and we both knew what we were thinking: “there’s no way we’re alike.”

A father and son rejoice together in a tearful moment after many long years. Because Odysseus has not returned home for twenty years since the Trojan War, Telemakhos, son of Odysseus, did not grow up with any fatherly influence. After their joyful reunion, it is made clear of how both of them are very much alike. Even though Telemakhos and Odysseus were separated, Telemakhos showed that he is worthy of being Odysseus’s son. He has the qualities of a great ruler: courage, hospitality, leadership; he looks up to Odysseus as his role model by creating a trustworthy relationship; he is also growing into manhood by asserting his authority. They also have a father and son bonding time which shows that they both act their own father and son roles.

Telemakhos looks up to his father, Odysseus, as a role model.

As a child, Telemakhos was told stories of the great Odysseus, but he has never met his father. “O Father, all my life your fame as a fighting man has echoed in my ears - your skill with weapons and the tricks of war - but what you speak of is a staggering thing, beyond imagining, for me” (XVI.297). After Odysseus comes back home, the two plot a plan to get rid of the suitors once and for all. He always followed his father’s orders so the plan would go smoothly. “Then he fell silent, and Telemakhos obeyed his father’s word” (XIX.353). Telemakhos showed that he respected his father and that he considers him as his role model. Like most father and son relationships, the son often looks up to the father; this is exactly like Odysseus and

Telemakhos.
Telemakhos, like Odysseus, possesses the qualities necessary of a ruler: courage, hospitality, and leadership. Odysseus was a great ruler in the past, everyone would bow at the sight of their king and show their loyalty. Telemakhos is also shown that sign of respect from everyone because he is the son of Odysseus. Before, when Telemakhos did not realize that beggar man was actually his father, he shows hospitality towards the stranger. “I’ll undertake at all events, to clothe your friend for winter” (XVI.291). When he meets his father in his original form, Telemakhos tells him “Ah, father, even when danger comes I think you’ll find courage in me” (XVI.299). He wants Odysseus to trust him that he is ready to take on the mission to eliminate the suitors. As the plan goes on he shows signs of leadership. Even the maid was surprised by how Telemakhos is acting; “He spoke so soldierly her own speech halted over her tongue” (XIX.354). These qualities shows how he is befitting to be a ruler like Odysseus.
At the end, Telemakhos shows signs that he is growing up to be a man. When he was ordered by his father to hide the arms, he calls the nurse, Eurykleia, to shut the women in their rooms so that no soot from the arms will harm them when he moves the arms. He says “I was a child then. Well, I am not now” (XIX.354). He says this to show the nurse that he was not that young child from before, now he is a man. Also the way he talks to Penelope, his mother, is different from before. He would talk in a respectful tone, but now he talks with authority in his voice. “Mother, as to the bow and who may handle it or not handle it, no man here has more authority than I do…” (XXI.402). He also talks down to the maids when he reveals that they committed sins unforgivable to Odysseus. “I would not give the clean death of a beast to trulls who made a mockery of my mother and of me too - you sluts, who lay with suitors (XXII.424). His actions and personality changed as he went into manhood.
Through Telemakhos’s coming of age, Odysseus and him have their own bonding time. They both discuss the plan to kill off the suitors and that shows how they are getting close with each other. “Harness and weapons must be out of sight in the inner room. And if the suitors miss them, be mild…” (XIX.353). Telemakhos and Odysseus is creating their own special bond through plotting tactics to eliminate the suitors. Even through battle at the Great Hall, the two showed their closeness. “Quick upon his father’s word Telemakhos ran to the room where spears and armor lay” (XXII.412). Telemakhos and Odysseus represent how a father and son would bond together. But plotting a massacre is probably not one of those moments a father and son should have.
Telemakhos in many ways is like Odysseus. Telemakhos proves that he is worthy of being Odysseus’s son by showing qualities of a great ruler, looking up to Odysseus as a role model, and growing up to be a man. They also show how they fit into their roles as father and son through their plotting of the massacre or bonding time. Thus Telemakhos and Odysseus is a great example of the saying “Like father, like son.”