Gods And Mortals In Homer's Odyssey

In The Odyssey by Homer, the interaction between gods and mortals plays an essential role to telling the story and displays the idea of how gods can mandate the lives of mortals. In the Odyssey, a goddess is willing to help a mortal and the interactions between them With the question of whether Odysseus is still living unanswered, it has been difficult for Penelope, his wife, to cope and therefore Athena comes to help the family and play the role of both a mother and father to Telemachus. As Penelope has been depressed, in book four she has a breakdown,“Down she sank on her well-built chamber’s floor, weeping, pitifully, as the young women whimpered around her, all the women, young and old, who served her house. Penelope, sobbing uncontrollably, cried out to them, “ “Hear me, dear ones!

My lion hearted husband, lost, long years ago”(4.810-816). As you can see, she is dwelling on the loss of Odysseus and can not seem to move on, she has hit her breakdown point. There is a unique relationship between Telemachus and Athena because of how Athena acts like a mother and father, in The Odyssey. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, is a close friend of Odysseus and because of their relationship decides it is time to help Telemachus, as his mother, Penelope is having difficulties functioning without Odysseus. As it states in the text “As for the ties between your father and myself, we’ve been friends forever, i’m proud to say, and he would bear me out”(1.2161-218) Athena was the goddess who made the initial decision to send Telemachus on the journey to find his father. “Athena, her eyes flashing bright, exulted, Father, son of Cronus, our high and mighty