Telemachus Role In The Odyssey

More than three thousand years after its composition, Homer’s Odyssey is still celebrated for having captured two of the innumerable stories and poems that were passed on from generation to generation very much in the same way that amber petrifies a bug, preserving an ephemeral memory, a decision which could not have been any more fortunate in such a pivotal time as when those stories had already began to fade away into obscurity as something of the far, distant past. Homer beggins by assuming an in medias res. form of narrative, in which, ten years after the Trojan embroilment, in which many of the Achaens return to their home to find that most everything has remained the same as just when they had left off, but in the case of Agamemnon and …show more content…
In the guise of a family friend, Athena confronts Telemachus, telling him, "My advice to you is this [...] Get the best ship/you can find, put twenty oarsmen aboard, go and find out about your father/and why he is so long away..." (Homer 17). As Telemachus had been close to considering his father dead and embracing the position he was in, which could have potentially led to him imploring his mother to accept one of the suitors as her new husband. In addition to that, Telemachus full-heartedly accepts the choice to go on a search for his father, which leads to him gaining the vital life knowledge he was neglected due to the absence of his father. Having been keen to the blatant contemplation of killing Telemachus by the suitors was a large factor in the role Athena had assumed when interacting with Telemachus, and as such, it also had ensured his survival in the condition his family had been. While seemingly negligible, the advice that Athena purports as Mentes is tantamount to Telemachus finding courage and direction his life, his safety, and the devotion of both him and