Telemachus´ Maturity and Growth in The Odysseus by Homer

Solon states in The Ages of Man a boy grows from “ A child in his infancy grows his first set of teeth and loses them within seven years” to a man at the age of approximately twenty one ”to show he is growing from youth to a man”. If one were to look at Telemachos and what stage he is in in comparison to Solon’s idea of men, it is a difficult pin to place. He was just a child ten years ago and is now growing into the “man” he is meant to become. Unfortunately he never had a father to show him the way. Telemachos, Odysseus’s son, was the “man” of the household after his father left for the Trojan War. When his father did not return to Ithaca, suitors flooded into his palace, grazing at all his food, and overstaying their welcome. Throughout The Odyssey, Telemachus matures very much so, but in the first four books, there is a definite transition from an immature scared little boy, to the man that revenges the abuse he received at the end of the story.

To begin with, Telemachus was afraid to even approach the suitors of his mother about his yearning for them to be gone. He has also lost hope that his father is still alive, because he truly does not know him. “My mother says indeed I am his. I for my part do not know. Nobody really knows his own father.” (32. 215-216) He speaks these words to Athena who in turn tells Telemachus about his father, and what he should do to find out some information about his father’s whereabouts. According to Solon, Telemachos should be at his mental and physical prowess but instead he is simply a boy who cannot even lead his own house. He needs the push and advice of a stranger for him to decide what to do.

Athena tells Telemachos that “You should not go on clinging to your childhood. You are no longer...

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...ent of Telemachus is amazing in the fact that it happened in such a short period of time. Each and every time he met a different person or was in a different situation that forced him to become socially instead of his usual distant self. He was able to adjust and alter himself to become better. In an anthropological way he was performing natural selection on his own. When he was home in Ithica with the suitors crawling around, he was unable to connect himself to anything, which evidently caused him to suffer by losing control. When he met Athena for the first time, she made him adapt and change to what she wanted him to be. With her guidance and encouragement, Telemachus was able to go even further and adapt to what King Nestor had told him, and soon enough what had led to meeting Menelaus. All of these encounters with people helped him become the man he is now.