Telemachus Growth In The Odyssey

A Hero’s Son Awakens Athena has had the greatest influence on Telemachus’ growth. Homer’s epic The Odyssey demonstrates Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, at first as an inexperienced, timid, and helpless young prince that is greatly pampered by his mother, Penelope. Due to his lack of confidence and assertiveness, Telemachus struggles to stop the many suitors who overrun his father’s palace and greedily devour the family’s vast stockpile of food and wine. Like Odysseus, Telemachus experiences his own journey in The Odyssey, and becomes increasingly more mature and brave thanks to the divine influence of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Her guidance and use of disguises instills confidence into Telemachus to not only stand up to the suitors but search for his father as well, thus aiding him in his journey and travels to manhood. Arriving at the …show more content…
With Odysseus’ absence and the palace being flooded by suitors, Athena persuades Telemachus to take matters into his own hands. Although Telemachus is already discouraged with the inappropriate manners of the suitors, Athena reinforces it by saying, “How obscenely the lounge and swagger here, look, / gorging in your house. Why, any man of sense / who chance among them would be outraged, / seeing such behavior.” (Homer 1.264 – 267). Athena allocates Telemachus’ maturity when his anger builds towards the suitors, causing him to take a stance against them. Also, Athena compares Telemachus to his father Odysseus claiming, “Oh how much you need Odysseus, gone so long / how he’d lay hands on all those brazen suitors! / … If only that Odysseus sported with those suitors,” (Homer 1.295-296,307). Here, Athena taunts Telemachus with a problem the young