“It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.” -Friedrich Schiller In this essay I will be discussing the father/son relationship in Homer’s most famous poems. The father in The Odyssey whom is Odysseus and his relationship with his son, Telemachus who becomes more and more important over the course of the story. Like Odysseus, Telemachus is undertaking his own journey in an important side supporting story to Odysseus 's return voyage to Ithaca. By examining this side story and the character and trials of Telemachus, the reader is able to tell how Ithaca will go on once Odysseus dies. Telemachus is clearly following in his father 's footsteps, and Ithaca will be in good hands. There are many obvious facts that are identified about the nature of a father-son relationships in Homer’s most famous poems The Odyssey and The lliad, before you can even start reading the story. Such as the person …show more content…
The relationship between Odysseus and Telemachus is compelling, especially when the reader compares their affection and alliance in contrast to the father-son relationship that Priam and Hector had. These two father-son pairs serve as different examples of the types of father-son relationships that the ancient Greeks were able to embody and express. Between Priam and Hector there was a certain degree of love and respect, but it was not sentimental at all. It is not until Hector is dead that Priam actually allows himself to express how he feels towards his son, and it is distinguished that he does so by appealing to Achilles’ relationship with his own father. It is even more significant that his appeal to the enemy’s sense of devoted loyalty and emotion worked in his
Throughout Homer’s Odyssey there is a consistent internal conflict regarding identity. Odysseus’ long circuitous route home can be attributed not only to the gods but to his own flaws that additively form his identity. Particularly, these faults of complacency, arrogance, and desire for concealment as means of avoidance are outlined in his early interactions most explicitly with Polyphemus (IX). Phaeacia, where he recounts his adventures, serves as a transition point where Odysseus is forced to address his flaws. He gains the capacity to learn from his mistakes and change the person he sought to cover up with disguises (VI, VII).
In The Odyssey, Homer highlights the character development of Telemahkos, the son of Odysseus. In the beginning of the book, Telemahkos is described as, “...for he, too, /was sitting there unhappy among the suitors,/ a boy, daydreaming.” (1, 144-146) He doesn’t know much about his identity, and doubts that he is the son of the great Odysseus. With some help from Athena, by the end of the book Telemahkos is sure of who he is, and takes pride in knowing that he is the son of Odysseus. When given a challenge, Telemahkos is able to thrive and prove he is strong, brave, and a leader.
A suitor is defined in Oxford Dictionary as a man who pursues a relationship with a particular woman, with a view to marriage. In the epic novel The Odyssey, there are a number of suitors after the same woman, Penelope. Penelope is the wife of the famous Odyssey, and the mother of Telemachus. Telemachus is not fans of the suitors that remain in his house waiting to see which his mother will chose, her husband who has been gone for twenty years or one of the new suitors in the house. Antinous is suitor that cannot be missed in the house. He is always speaking about his ability to win over Penelope better than any other suitor in the house. He is different than the other suitors because he is not portrayed at someone with emotion or sympathy.
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.
Odysseus is one of the very many prominent characters in Homer’s Epic poems, The Illiad, and The Odyssey. Odysseus has been famed one of the more relatable characters from Homer’s writing, as well as one of the Greatest Greek Mythology Heroes. Homer’s Epic poems highlight many periods of shame and honor for Odysseus. The character analysis of Odysseus through the poem’s timeline shows vast developments and heroic features appear to take form in him. The Illiad portrayed Odysseus as more of a secondary figure behind Agamemnon and Achilles. In contrast, The Odyssey portrayed Odysseus as a hero in the form of an average human.
Over their travels in the epic The Odyssey, both Odysseus’ and his son Telemachus’ adventures were parallel but at the same time different. These travels led them both to grow and change drastically, and both learned some very important life lessons over the course of this epic.
In Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey, the main theme is the reunification of the family, as Odysseus struggles to return home and rejoin his wife and son. Throughout the Odyssey, we are shown examples of families: good ones that prosper and bad ones that do not. As Telemakhos struggles to become a man and Odysseus struggles homeward, the concept of healthy family life is stressed. At the end, when all conflicts are resolved and Odysseus is reunited with wife and son, the lesson that a united family can overcome any obstacles is shown and is one that today's families should heed.
The relationship between Odysseus and Telemakhos is a blind love. That is because they never really got to know each other because Odysseus has been gone for most of Telemakhos’ life. One example of this blind love is when Odysseus hears about how the suitors are mistreating and stealing from Telemakhos. Odysseus gets so irate that he was then even more determined than ever, to return to his family. Telemakhos also exhibits the same kind of blind love towards his father. Even though people have told him that his father was dead, he never believed it. He felt that his father was alive and was willing to sacrifice his life to prove it. Telemakhos was inexperienced at directing a boat, but he was willing to try because he felt something inside of him that gave him the strength to go on. Thus, this relationship between Odysseus and Telemakhos gave both of them the courage to overcome the hardships ahead of them.
The relationships between parents and their sons in the Iliad are not relationships we expect to see in today’s society. The Iliad portrays the relationships between fathers and sons as something more than just physical and emotional. It is based on pride and respect for one another. The expectations of their son are more so to pass on their fathers reputable name and to follow in their father’s footsteps of being noble warriors. These relationships are the driving forces in the Iliad, making each son in the Iliad identifiable first by their father’s name. An outcome of the father–son relationships is ancestral loyalty among the characters which play a prominent role in war. Therefore, not only does the Iliad share a major war story, but the strong relationships among fathers and sons, ancestral loyalty among characters, and relationships between mothers and sons.
In the first four books of Homer’s The Odyssey, the character of Telemachus undergoes a dramatic evolution. When Homer first introduces him, he appears to be an unsophisticated youth, wallowing in self-pity. After the goddess Athena intervenes, he becomes, seemingly, a man of courage, strength, and resolve. On closer analysis, however, one remains to wonder if this transformation is genuine. The rapidity of his change in personality and the assistance he requires from the goddess at every stage in his journey suggests that he is not yet a hero in the mold of his father, the great Odysseus.
There are many essential emotions that form the building blocks of our lives. These emotions help to shape the people that we are. These feelings are emotional necessities to ultimately keep us happy. No piece of literature these feelings more evident than the Odyssey by Homer. Throughout the course of this book there is one major emotional theme: love.
In The Odyssey, the distance between father and son is also important, and is the means by which the two men establish and define their relationship with one another.
Homer's two central heroes, Odysseus and Achilles, are in many ways differing manifestations of the same themes. While Achilles' character is almost utterly consistent in his rage, pride, and near divinity, Odysseus' character is difficult to pin down to a single moral; though perhaps more human than Achilles, he remains more difficult to understand. Nevertheless, both heroes are defined not by their appearances, nor by the impressions they leave upon the minds of those around them, nor even so much by the words they speak, but almost entirely by their actions. Action is what drives the plot of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and action is what holds the characters together. In this respect, the theme of humanity is revealed in both Odysseus and Achilles: man is a combination of his will, his actions, and his relationship to the divine. This blend allows Homer to divulge all that is human in his characters, and all that is a vehicle for the idyllic aspects of ancient Greek society. Accordingly, the apparent inconsistencies in the characterization of Odysseus can be accounted for by his spiritual distance from the god-like Achilles; Achilles is more coherent because he is the son of a god. This is not to say that Achilles is not at times petty or unimaginative, but that his standards of action are merely more continuous through time. Nevertheless, both of Homer's heroes embody important and admirable facets of ancient Greek culture, though they fracture in the ways they are represented.
The Odyssey is filled with emotion and adventure. Homer’s ability to show and give the reader a visual of each and every scene gives the story its unbelievable significance. To all the people who read his work there is something to be captured within every sentence, each one different in its own, unique way. Through tales of courage and defeat, friendship and love this book tells of all the values within the life of a single, solitary man, and his journey to attain what is true and dear to him. And this journey is known to all of us as The Odyssey. The Odyssey is a test of human devotion and trust through the gods, the mortals, and the obstacles through which they venture. No matter where they go or what they do, humans are tested for certain characteristics everyday of their lives, whether they realize it or not; and The Odyssey is just one of those many miraculous tests.
“The Odyssey” is an epic poem that tells the story of Odysseus and the story of his many travels and adventures. The Odyssey tells the main character’s tale of his journey home to the island of Ithaca after spending ten years fighting in the Trojan War, and his adventures when he returns home and he is reunited with his family and close friends. This literary analysis will examine the story and its characters, relationships, major events, symbols and motifs, and literary devices.