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Critical essays major themes in the odyssey
Critical essays major themes in the odyssey
The odyssey telemachus character development I-IV
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Since the beginning of time, people have traveled to interesting places learning new information and gaining knowledge about foreign cultures. They have encountered unexpected predicaments obtaining more experience, knowledge, and maturity from the difficulties they faced. As this frequently occurs in real life and art often mirrors life, these same situations are commonly featured in literature. One such piece of literature is the epic entitled The Odyssey, which was written by the Greek minstrel Homer. In the work, the story of Odysseus who is the king of Ithaca and his son Telemachus is illustrated. To learn more about his absent father, Telemachus goes on a journey. On his travels, Odysseus encounters many different situations and people …show more content…
gaining crucial knowledge that allows him to grow as a person. For example, Telemachus meets Athena learning how he should proceed on the issue of his father, travels to Pylos gaining excellent advice from King Nestor, and sails to Sparta discovering more information about Odysseus. As a result of his hospitality towards a stranger, Telemachus meets Athena and obtains the knowledge he needs to learn more about his father. In order to fight in the Trojan War, Telemachus had to leave his son on the day he was born. As a result, Telemachus never had the chance to know his father, and because Odysseus has been gone for approximately twenty years, most people in Ithaca believes he is dead. Wanting to marry Penelope, Telemachus’s mother, become the next king, suitors have overrun his palace. One day when a stranger shows up at his doorstep: Daydreaming so as he sat among the suitors, He glimpsed Athena now And straight to the porch he went, mortified That a guest might still be standing at the doors. (1.138-141) For years, Telemachus has been forced to handle the suitors who have been harassing his mother. They eat all of his food, drinking his wine, slaughtering his cattle, and staying in his palace. Despite the fact that they have only taken advantage of him, he still shows the random stranger hospitality. It turns out that the stranger is Athena disguised as Mentes, an old friend of Odysseus, who wants to help Telemachus. She gives Telemachus the knowledge he needs to handle the issue of his father. For example, she tells Telemachus that if he learns that his father is still alive to: Hard-pressed as you are, brave out one more year. If you hear he’s dead, no longer among the living, Then back you come to the native land you love, Raise his grave-mound, build his honors high (1.331-334).
Furthermore, she tells him to send his mother to her father, so he can handle the question of her remarrying. Moreover, she informs him that he should call a meeting of Ithaca’s council to tell the suitors to leave, assemble a ship with a crew and twenty oars, and sail to Pylos in order to question King Nestor. Telemachus follows her instructions almost exactly except for sending his mother away. Athena’s instructions influence all of Telemachus’s actions from that point on. Therefore, in the first book, Telemachus meets Athena and gains the instruction he follows on the rest of his literal and educational journey.
By traveling to the island of Pylos, Telemachus encounters King Nestor who gives him crucial advice. King Nestor had fought with Telemachus’s father in the Trojan War. With his father being absent for approximately twenty years, Telemachus did not have any idea where his father could be or if he was even alive. On Athena’s instructions, Telemachus’s “ship pulled into Pylos, Neleus’ storied citadel, / where the people lined the beaches, / sacrificing sleek black bulls to Poseidon (3.4-6). To learn more information about Odysseus, Telemachus visits Pylos where King Nestor lives. As was reputed, Odysseus and King Nestor both fought together on behalf of the Greeks during the Trojan War. After they defeated the Trojans, they attempted tried to return home. However, Odysseus and King Nestor were separated on
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the journey. Thus, Nestor could provide Telemachus with any information about his father. Despite this, Nestor could still give him advice such as: Dear boy, take care. Don’t rove from home too long, too far, leaving your own holding unprotected - crowds in your house so braxen They’ll carve up all your wealth, devour it all.
(3.353-355)
This was incredibly sound advice considering how Penelope’s suitors had been draining Telemachus’s fortune and, in his absence, had been planning his demise. In addition to not stay away for too long, Nestor told him the story of Orestes who murders his father’s killer in hopes of galvanizing and inspiring him. He also told him to travel to see Menelaus on the island of Sparta where he would finally get the information he needs to find his father. Therefore, Telemachus sails to the island of Pylos meeting King Nestor and gaining critical advice that would influence the rest of his journey and
life. Following Athena’s and King Nestor’s advice, Telemachus travels to Sparta where he meets Menelaus who is the king of Sparta. Both Athena and King Nestor told Telemachus to travel to Sparta. On the island, he would find both King Menelaus and Queen Helen. The Greeks had been united under Menelaus when they fought the Trojan War, which started when Menelaus's wife, Helen, was taken from him by Paris. Thinking they could provide some insight regarding his father, “at last they gained the ravines of Lacedaemon ringed by hills / and drove up to the halls of Menelaus in his glory” (4.1-2). Even though Menelaus and Odysseus had gotten separated on their respective journeys home, the king is still able to provide Telemachus the information he needs to reunite with his father. In fact, he tells Telemachus that Odysseus is being held captive on the island of Ogygia by Calypso. Telemachus would go on to travel to Ogygia in an attempt to save his father. Moreover, Menelaus and Helen are able to tell Odysseus information about his father because both the king and queen knew Odysseus personally.For example, they can share the story when he: slipped into the enemy’s city, roamed its streets All disguised, a totally different man, a beggar, Hardly the figure he cut among Achaea’s ships. That’s how Odysseus infiltrated Troy, And no one knew him at all … (4.276-280) Telemachus never knew had the chance to know his father as Odysseus left for the Trojan War on the day he was born. He never knew his father’s cunning or intelligence. This is exactly the kind of information Helen and Menelaus could share since they saw Odysseus at his best during the Trojan War especially considering the stratagem of the wooden horse. Ultimately, Telemachus sailed to Sparta and spoke with the rulers of the island who shared stories of Odysseus with him. Over the course of the first four books of The Odyssey, Telemachus went on both a literal and education journey in which he met Athena, questioned Nestor, and spoke with Menelaus and Helen. While at home being harassed by his mother’s rude and tactless suitors, Athena actively sought him out and gave him the information he would need to find his father. For example, she told him that he should start by sailing to Pylos. Furthermore, Telemachus traveled to the island of Pylos where the king of the island, Nestor, gave him crucial advice like to not stray from home for too long, to be brave like Orestes, and to travel to Sparta. Finally, Telemachus sailed to Sparta where he spoke to Menelaus, heard stories about his father like when he infiltrated Troy, and ultimately learned Odysseus’s location. Telemachus, like many others, learned important information and life lessons on his travels. He grew from the experiences he encountered when he went outside his comfort zone. If he had never done this, he may have never found his father. In order to grow and learn, people must have new experiences, go out of their comfort zone, or travel to new places. No one ever learned more by staying complacent.
Telemachus’ and his father Odysseus’ experiences/journeys parallel each other in many different ways. One way that they are both similar is that they are both very well liked by Athena, who accompanies both on their journeys around Greece. Athena acts as guardian to both father and son. A quote which proves this is I, 85 “In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Odysseus' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also condu...
In Odyssey, Homer creates a parallel between Odysseus and Telemachos, father and son. The two are compared in the poem from every aspect. One parallel was the quest of Telemachos, in correlation with the journey of his father. In this, Odysseus is developed from a childish, passive, and untested boy, to a young man preparing to stand by his father's side. This is directly connected to the voyage of Odysseus, in that they both lead to the same finale, and are both stepping-stones towards wisdom, manhood, and scholarship.
The first step in any hero’s journey is the Call to Adventure, or the seperation from the pack. For Odysseus this call happened while he was on Calypso’s Island. Up on Olympus Athena had convinced Zeus of her case and Hermes was dispatched to free Odysseus from Calypso’s grasp. Odysseus was settled here for quite some time and had no way of escape until Calypso was forced by the gods to let him go. This is where his journey begins. At first Odysseus is very skeptical of this freedom and thinks that it is a trick by Calypso, which is the denial stage that follows the call to adventure. This stage seperates Odysseus once agaian from what has become familiar to him. He is called to journey alone once again to gain what it is that he has wanted for so long. For Telemachus his call came due to the perils he was facing in his own home with suitors competing for his mother’s love. They started to eat him out of house and home and began to disrespect his mother. Before this Telemachus had stayed quiet, and had not taken action. Telemachus got summoned to branch out from his mother and his home to venture out on a journey of his own. It was now his time to become a man.
Early on in both of their stories, Odysseus and Telemachus learn to practice strong will in initiating their own journeys. Even though Telemachus reaches the cusp of his childhood, the individuals around him plague him into believing he remains a boy. In the Odyssey, gods are considered to control vast things such as fate or choose to intrude in the lives of mortals. One of these goddesses, Athena, desires to aid both Odysseus and Telemachus in their journeys. In disguise, she gives Telemachus inspiration to initiate the steps to adulthood by saying, “you’ll never be fainthearted or a fool, /Telemachus, if you have your father’s spirit; /he finished what he cared to say,” (Homer 27). With this he commences the hardship of finding his father by immediately calling an assembly and defying the men around him who thought him incapable. Meanwhile, Odysseus has already faced trials testing his determination. He evades the many temptations of immortals su...
Telemachus's initiation is slightly different, but quite like the initiation high schoolers go through to college. With Telemachus, he had started out as a slightly awkward, measly,shy, and powerless young adult. Originally Telemachus self doubted himself quite a lot whether it was verbal or internal thinking. “Mother has always told me I’m his son, it’s true, but I am not so certain,”Telemachus had said (The Odyssey 1.249-250). In this instance Telemachus does not seem too sure if he is even the true son of his almighty father, Odysseus. He did not know the man well and had nothing to base who he was off of so he had immense doubt in his future and who he was and who he would become. That gradually changes once Athena met him in disguise and gave him guidance. Eventually through her guidance he grew more confident and assertive. Athena gave him the instructions he needed to hear to realize what he needed to do. He went from a lowly, depressed, and self doubting young man to a more confidently glowing assertive being. Telemachus had said once meeting Nestor, “ That’s why I’ve come to p...
After he gets together a crew he begins to take charge, and “Telemachus shout[s] out commands to all his shipmates: ‘All lay hands to tackle!’ They [spring] to orders” (106). Telemachus at this point is beginning to find his own voice. He is driven by the desire to find Odysseus and it is bringing out an authoritative side to him which the men seem to respect. Despite some of the crew being older than him they listen and respond positively to his orders. Once they reach their first destination, Pylos, King Nestor addresses Telemachus and his crew. At the start of this interaction Telemachus is quite fearful and intimidated by the king. Thanks to Athena however, “poised Telemachus answer[es], filled with heart, the heart Athena herself inspired, to ask for the news about his father, gone so long, and make his name
Telemachus takes charge of the household. When Penelope tells the bard to leave, Telemachus tells Penelope to go back to her room and says, “‘As for giving orders, men will see to that, but I most of all: I hold the reins of the house” (1.412-414). Before Telemachus never even thought himself as the leader of his household, but now he is even ordering his mother around. Ever since Odysseus left, there was no one obvious ruler to his household, but now Telemachus has established him as the person in charge. Telemachus organizes the kingdom and it’s people. Telemachus even “...ordered heralds to cry out loud and clear / and summon the flowing-haired Achaeans to full assembly” (2.6-7). This is especially important because an assembly in Ithaca hasn’t been called in 20 years since Odysseus left. The fact that Telemachus calls an assembly shows that he is becoming prepared to rule the kingdom. Telemachus even walks into the assembly looking prepared and powerful. For instance, “Telemachus strode in too, a bronze spear in his grip / and not alone: two sleek hounds went trotting at his heels” (2.10-11). The bronze spear symbolizes power, and the hounds symbolize trust and Telemachus’ loyalty to the kingdom. This shows that Telemachus knows what he is doing and intentionally chose to present himself like this in order to show the people of Ithaca that he is prepared to be in charge. Telemachus also progresses in
It is stated, “he kissed his son and let his tears/fall to the ground. He had held them in until now” (Bk XVI, 202-203). Finally, at last after his 10 years fighting at war and 10 years trying to return home, Odysseus is reunited with family for the first time. The emotion Odysseus is feeling is overwhelming and strong as he realizes the mental and physical battle he went through was worth it. Telemachus has much of the same emotion as Odysseus. Although at first Telemachus does not believe that Odysseus is really Odysseus and its just spirit playing a trick on him, he quickly realizes his long lost father has finally returned. When he recognizes who his father is he, “threw his arms around his wonderful father/ and wept. And a longing arose in both of them/ to weep and lament, and their shrill cries/ crowded the air” (Bk XVI, 225-228). For Telemachus and Odysseus there is finally a joyful hiatus in all of the struggle and hardship that was going on and they relax in each other’s presence. They connect with each other like they’ve always known each other, and like they were never actually separated. The reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus is important because it is father and son reuniting together for the first time. They grow stronger together and united to take down the
In the Odyssey, Telemachus, son of great hero Odysseus, who grows up in the world of greed and disrespect where the suitors take over his palace and court his mother, is one of the most significant character throughout the whole epic. His father, Odysseus, leaving the land Ithaca for 20 years, is the only warrior alive in Trojan war who hasn’t make his return home. During Telemachus’ expedition to search for the news of his father, he is under a process of maturation from the beginning in which he is mere a shadow of his father to the end in which he becomes more and more like him in terms of initiative, sensitivity and socialization.
In the time period of The Odyssey, the people of Greece worshipped the gods for advice and guidance. The gods then decided if they were going to help or ignore their people. This is seen in The Odyssey where Athena decides that she will help save Odysseus. To help save Odysseus, she first decides to talk to his son, Telemachus. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, gives advice to Telemachus. As of this point on, the reader observes a change in Telemachus. From a shy and timid boy now becomes a confident and self-assured man. Telemachus then takes immediate actions and surprises everyone, even his own mother because of his superiority. However Telemachus wouldn't have been responsible for his actions if one individual didn't give advice to him, Athena. Therefore Athena, or the gods in general were responsible for Telemachus' actions by setting up a crew for him to travel and also telling Telemachus to drive away the suitors and to seek information about Odysseus.
Telemachus has drastically changed towards the end of the novel, for in the beginning it is blatantly obvious that he us disengaged from everyone and everything. He is often unaware and unbothered by his surrounding environment. This is proven through the quote, “ Prince Telemachus/ sitting among the suitors, heart obsessed with grief,/he could almost see his magnificent father, here…” (I.132-134). Here Homer illustrates the suitors searching through Telemachus’s house, eating all of his food, and drinking all of his wine, and he remains silent and still. He is internally struggling for he cannot shake what is eating him from the inside. He doesn’t know anything about his other half, for he was left as an infant. This is proven when he says, “ I’ll try my friend, to give you a frank answer,/ Mother has always told me I’m his son, it’s true,/ but I am not so certain” (I.248-250). He misses his father and is constantly surrounded by men trying to marry his mother and taking advantage of his father’s absence. He internalizes his sorrow and so he cannot react to anything. He is numb to all. His numbness is a defense to his loss of hope for his father’s return. He has convinced himself that his father is dead and that this is the life he has. “ No Comfort left for us…not even if/ someone, somewhere, say’s he’s coming home,/ the day of his return will never dawn” (I.194-196). He longs for his father to come back, but remaining optimistic is far too painful and raises the possibility of complete devastation.
He is released from Ogygia and permitted to return to Ithaca only by the command of Zeus, as delivered by Hermes. Telemachus, rather than being trapped physically, was detained emotionally, feeling helpless to repel the suitors wooing Penelope. Only through the motivation of the goddess Athena did Telemachus find the will and courage to embark in search of Odysseus.
In Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, Telemachus learns how to mature from a young boy to a wise man with Athena’s help. Telemachus was a boy who did not know how to do anything. “Long before anyone else, the prince Telemachus now caught sight of Athena-for he, too, was sitting there, unhappy among the suitors, a boy, daydreaming. What if his great father came from the unknown world and drove these men like dead leaves through the place,” (Line 18-23). Telemachus is wanting his daddy to come and make all these disgusting men leave. He is just too immature and young to realize that he can try. If he had a good model who he is able to follow and learn from, he would have been a great prince. But since there is not a single person he can look up to, Telemachus
At the end of book four, the reader is left to feel that Telemachus is a good and, in all likelihood, a virtuous young man. Athena, it is assumed, would not have gone to the trouble to assist in his cause if this were not the case. By the time he reaches Sparta, however, he remains untested. Athena tells him where to go and with whom to meet, she teaches him what to say, and she even physically grooms him for the role. One suspects that there are likely to be trials that lie ahead for him. Athena tells Telemachus that his actions will be a combination of instinct and divine guidance. One can only hope, if the goddess is not by his side, that these instincts will see him through these upcoming struggles.
Telemachus is not mature and acts very much like a child until he and Athena talk to each other. He was not holding up the title of being the man in the house and he did not have the courage or confidence to stand up to the suitors in the house. Anyhow, once Athena gets to him he starts to clean up his act and realize that he needs to grow up. Athena explained to him the proper ways of doing things and she teaches him how to keep up with the responsibilities of being a young adult. The first thing she does to help Telemachus is tells him that he should get a crew together and a good ship. He then starts to plan out his journey to find his dad, Odysseus. He needs to find out if his dad is still alive and where he is so that he can bring him back home to avoid one of the worthless suitors. Realizing that one of the suitors could marry his mother, something clicks in Telemachus’ head that he needs to do something. This helps him grow up and mature a significant amount because he is starting to realize that is not how he should