Tracing the Relationship Between Penelope and Telemachus in the Odyssey Term Paper

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Homer's Odyssey is a complex set of both personal and cultural relationships between many characters. The main characters involved are steady and fiercely loyal to what they believe to be right, even when these things contradicted some societal ideas. Homeric culture demanded a high level of attention be paid to social norms and standards. The loyalty the characters must show is very accurately demonstrated in the relationship between Telemakhos and his mother Penelope. Telemakhos and Penelope show a high level of loyalty to one another through both love and admiration of one another and through their undying loyalty to Odysseus.

Telemakhos shows both admiration and loyalty toward his mother, his household and his father by publicly lamenting and confronting the intruding suitors in a public assembly, an assembly that is not called together frequently and seems to be reserved for very important events or occasions. Telemakhos makes clear to the assembly that he wishes that the suitors withdraw from his home because they are both unwanted and because proof of his father's death, even after such a long absence, has not been determined. Telemakhos reports that his mother wishes to remain faithful to Odysseus until some sure sign of his death is brought to her, yet she is forced by custom to address so many unwanted suitors and feels unprotected so far from her own family:

Mother wanted no suitors, but like a pack they came -- sons of the best men here among them -- lads with no stomach for an introduction to Ikarios, her father across the sea; he would require a wedding gift, and give her to someone who found favor in her eyes. No these men spend their days around our house killing our beeves and sheep and fatted goats, carousing, soaking up our good dark wine, not caring what they do. They squander everything.

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We have no strong Odysseus to defend us,... (Homer Book II, 20)

In this public show of loyalty to his mother and father there is also a strong sense of financial loss. As an heir to Odysseus' household Telemakhos seems to be driven by his fear of losing the wealth his father had worked so hard to build. This may seem a purely selfish drive but in truth the protection of the whole family, including those of blood relation and all those the household contains, is seated in the maintenance of this wealth. People in this time did not just go out and get a job to pay the bills. They became the protected members of households with the financial means to support them or they….....

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