[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on
The Odyssey
In every book and story there is a lesson to learn from to help shape the reader s experience. Here we see how the stories influence Penelope and his son Telemakhos’s live. From that which I have learned and can infer, the character of Telemakhos, is one which to date, is attributed with great controversy concerning the societal definitions of maturity. Every boy would like to be characterized as a man. Most look to age or the way they see their own maturity to determine manhood for themselves. Neither age nor self-image can determine whether or not you have become a man. In that time, arete would be used to determine one’s manhood. Early in the Odyssey, we see Telemakhos daydreaming as an untrained boy. Telemakhos tries to be like his father to the best of his ability, even though his father has been away since he was merely an infant. The only father he knew was from stories told by people, including his mother.
In the dreams and stories, you can be built up to be more than you really are. In person, you can see how flawed the person really is, which may lower your opinions and ideals. But still, one would not want to sacrifice that for the intimate father and son love and memories that would have been attained during childhood. The better father would be the one that was always there.
“Can I banish against her will / The mother who bore me and took care of me?", is less a recognition of Penelope s right as a person to the house in which she lives than it is an acknowledgment of Penelope s role as his parent and his own as her child. If Penelope were not Telemakhos natural mother, would her claim on her husband’s home be any less? Telemakhos implies that it would......
