The afternoon was slowly fading into the evening and I had gone the whole day without the figure of my aspiration, my father. I impatiently paced the floor in front of the door like a stalking cat waiting to pounce on its prey. The thoughts of wrestling my father and hear those words of affirmation, “You got me! Mercy! I give up!” filled my head. My father was obviously faking it but there was something about his words that have such power over a young boys life. Mothers are sources of comfort and safety for a young boy but it is the father that defines the identity of a young boy, the father bestows manhood on the boy. “A boy learns who he is and what he’s got from a man, or the company of men. He cannot learn it any other place. He cannot learn it from other boys, and he cannot learn it from the world of women. The plan from the beginning of time was that his father would lay the foundation of a young boy’s heart...” (Eldredge 62) In the epic tale the Odyssey the young Telemachos went nearly 20 years without his father. Odysseus, Telemachos’ father, left for the Trojan War when Telemachos was just born. The Trojan War lasted for 10 years and on Odysseus’ journey home he faced a 10 year detour. Odysseus, the great king of Ithaca has been missing for 20 years and rumors of his death had reached the shores of his kingdom. Suitors who have no intention of caring for Telemachos and Penelope (Odysseus’ wife), but of amassing Odysseus’ fortune began to fill the halls of Odysseus’ home in hopes of becoming the next king of Ithaca. Young Telemachos stood powerless to defend his mother and his Father’s good name. Powerless because he did not realize who he really was. His identity had not been revealed to him. If there was a time that Telemachos needed his father it was then. He needed his father to protect his mother, to defend the family name, and more than anything, reveal Telemachos’ identity. After all, who was Telemachos to stand toe to toe with the suitors who have been battle tested? With the help of Athena (goddess of war) Telemachos set out on a journey to find his father, but more than just his father, he set out to find himself.
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.
At some point in their life, many people experience feelings of inadequacy or uncertainty. In “The Odyssey” by Homer, one of the main characters Telemachus experiences both of these feelings. He feels that he is not good enough, especially compared to his father, Odysseus, who many people refer to as a great leader. In the beginning of “The Odyssey”, Telemachus’ home has been taken over by suitors, each with the goal of winning over his mother, in hopes to marry her and become king. Telemachus is not fond of these men in his home, but does not have the confidence to get rid of them. Lastly, at this point in the story, Odysseus, Telemachus’ father, has been gone for approximately twenty years, most of Telemachus’ life. Telemachus has been
Throughout novel, The Odyssey by Homer, Telemachus, son of the main character, Odysseus, goes through significant phases that changes his life forever. Right from the beginning, Telemachus was in a situation that he couldn't rid himself out of. He was basically a depressed boy with a “heart obsessed with grief”(Homer 81) who couldn't man up because of having a missing father or any men to look up to, and also having to face the worst guests, men trying to take his mother, throw him away, make him feel weak, and take over the palace. “'He's left me tears and grief. Nor do I rack my heart and grieve for him alone. No Longer. Now the gods have invented other miseries to plague me'” (Homer 85).
Telemachus has many experiences on his journey to manhood. In Ithaca while Odysseus is gone Penelope is being plagued with suitors asking for her hand in marriage. Telemachus sees what a nuisance they are to his mother, and how much they are taking from his father’s palace. He wants to put a stop to this and comes to the conclusion that he must find his father, or at least some information
In the Odyssey, written by Homer, Odysseus learned a lot about himself and what he had to do to become a better overall human. The adventures he goes on, I think, opens his eyes to a world in which he thought he was invincible.
“There is no safety in unlimited hubris” (McGeorge Bundy). The dictionary defines hubris as overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance. In The Odyssey, Homer embodies hubris into the characters Odysseus, the Suitors, and the Cyclopes. Odysseus shows hubris when he is battling the Cyclopes, the Cyclopes show hubris when dealing with Odysseus, and the Suitors show it when Odysseus confronts them at his home.
Have you ever really wanted to eat the last cookie but it took every ounce of self discipline to resist the temptation? That's the way Odysseus and his men feel thought out The Odyssey. But they don't always resist and give into the temptation. Odysseus and his men do not show self discipline through the odyssey.
The Hero’s Journey is never an easy one. This particular journey, as detailed in Homer’s The Odyssey, is one of struggle, loss, heartache, pain, growth and triumph. It is comprised of many steps that Odysseus has to overcome and battle through in order to achieve his final goal of reaching his home and his loved ones. From the Call to Adventure to the Freedom or Gift of living, Odysseus conquered them all. The story begins in the middle of the story, as many of the oral Greek traditions did, with the Journey of Telemachus to find his father. Although Telemachus has not yet met his father, it is almost as if they are journeying together, where the end of both of their journeys results in being reunited. Telemachus journeys from being a boy to becoming a man, while out in the sea Odysseus is battling Poseidon to return to the home that wife that he loves and the home he has left behind.
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.
When Odysseus left Ithica, Telemakhos was only an infant. Now twenty years later, Telemakhos is faced with the hoggish suitors and shows little sign of hope for the future. In fact, when Athena approaches him as Mentor, he gives this grim description of his situation: "they eat their way through all that we have, and when they will, they can demolish me" (I.297-298). Telemakhos is rightfully anxious about the problems at hand. He doesn't remember his father, whom he refers to as "a man whose bones are rotting somewhere now" (I.199), and holds out little faith "in someone's hoping he still may come" (I.206-207). This shows Telemakhos' realization of the scope of his problems at hand. He is not naive to the suitors intentions, and seemingly too him, he is left alone to contend with them. It is here that Telemakhos displays emotional immaturity and a lack of confidence. Though he may realize the necessary strength of one who could overtake his enemies, he cannot identify these capacities within himself. Fortunately, Athena's encouragement comes just at the right time. She encourages that he "call the islanders to assembly, and speak your will, and call the gods to witness: the suitors must go scattering to t...
The relationship between Odysseus and his wife Penelope is one of loyalty, love, and faith. Both characters are driven by these characteristics. Odysseus displays his loyalty in his constant battle to get home to his wife. This love helps him persevere through the many hardships that he encounters on his journey home. Odysseus spent 20 years trying to return to his home in Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. Along the way he manages to offend both gods and mortals, but through his intelligence, and the guidance of Athena, he manages to finally return home. There he discovers that his home has been overrun by suitors attempting to win Penelope’s hand in marriage. The suitors believed that Odysseus was dead. Odysseus and his son, Telemachus,
For centuries, authors have been writing stories about man's journey of self-discovery. Spanning almost three-thousand years, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Odyssey, and Dante's Inferno are three stories where a journey of self-discovery is central to the plot. The main characters, Gilgamesh, Telemachus, and Dante, respectively, find themselves making a journey that ultimately changes them for the better. The journeys may not be exactly the same, but they do share a common chain of events. Character deficiencies and external events force these three characters to embark on a journey that may be physical, metaphorical, or both. As their journeys progress, each man is forced to overcome certain obstacles and hardships. At the end of the journey, each man has been changed, both mentally and spiritually. These timeless tales relate a message that readers throughout the ages can understand and relate to.
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.
The boy appears to play the role of the responsible adult more so than the father does. The boy has typical signs of a child from today’s broken family relationships; he does not want to disappoint either parent. The boy s...
middle of paper ... ... In Homer’s Odyssey, both Odysseus and his son Telemachus embark on long, difficult journeys; Odysseus trying to return from Troy to his home in Ithaca, escaping Calypso and the island of Ogygia, and Telemachus from Ithaca to Pylos and Sparta in search of his lost father. While The Odyssey tells of the courage both men demonstrate during their respective travels, their quests are the results of the intentions and desires of gods. Odysseus is trapped in exile on Ogygia by the will of Poseidon, whose anger Odysseus attracts when he blinds the Cyclops Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, and by the love of Calypso, who wishes to make Odysseus her husband.