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Telemachos in Homer's The Odyssey: The Original Coming of Age Story

In Homer's epic masterpiece, The Odyssey, many aspects of human life are examined, but,

perhaps, the most closely inspected aspect is the personal journey. The hero of the story, Odysseus,

and his son, Telemachos, are focused on especially in this regard, with the first four books

concerning Telemachos' journey, and the remaining depicting Odysseus'. However, if examined

closely, it is obvious that the two journeys are parallel. This being the case, one could infer thatTelemachos' journey, a journey to his coming of age, is so closely paralleled with Odysseus' heroic

journey, so as to have enough of the heroic in it to establish Telemachos as the mini-hero of one of,

if not the, Western world's first coming of age stories.

In order to make this argument, however, a person must first establish some basic facts: first,

that Odysseus is the hero of the story, for if he is not the hero, then his parallel to Telemachos

actually hurts Telemachos character rather than helping him. Second, that the two journeys of father

and son are clearly paralleled, and that as such both are heroic. Then with these two facts

established, one must only prove that Telemachos' journey is actually a type of coming of age story

and a sort of predecessor, or even father to, the modern, Western, coming of age novels and stories.Thus, to begin, one should discuss the idea of Odysseus being the hero, since it is the basis of the

rest of the argument. That being said, one should ask oneself the question, is Odysseus the hero of

the poem?

Of course many might take this for a given, however, it should not necessarily be taken as

such. For example, there are many legitimate and well-grounded arguments that point to Penelope

as the real hero of the story. After all, does she not suffer as much as Odysseus or Telemachos?

Does she not prove herself by beating Odysseus at the end of the poem at his own mental games? In

fact, she does do all of these things, and is clearly a hero in her own respects; however, I would

argue she is not the main hero of the poem, if for no other reason, than that for the most part thepoem centers around Odysseus and not Penelope. Further, the poem even begins with Homer

invoking the Muse to sing to him "of the man of many ways"(p27, line 1) who was "struggling for

his own life and the homecoming of his companions" (p27, line 5). Right away Homer sets him up

as the traditional Greek hero. Odysseus is a very remarkable man who is looking out for the good of

his fellow men and looking for the hero's homecoming, and the end to his heroic journey. So, it is

clear that the poem focus' on Odysseus as the main hero of the story, although, that point on its own

does not actually do much good for the argument of Telemachos as a heroic character until it is

combined with the next point, that is that Odysseus is a positive hero and not a anti-hero of sorts.

The idea of Odysseus as a positive hero should be one easy to prove. For, although,

Odysseus has his faults, and almost gives in to temptation a few times, he always ends up coming

through his trails without tainting his heroic image. He is the traditional Greek hero, which is a

positive hero. He sought out reason and order, he was resourceful, mentally superior to everyone in

the poem, with the possible exception of Penelope, and he was constantly referred to as "god-like

Odysseus," all of which are traditional Greek heroic qualities. Further, his main goal was to achieve

his homecoming, the ultimate realization for a Greek hero who has been away on his journey. It also

speaks to Odysseus' positive hero status that he alone of the three main Greekheroes of Troy, unlike

Achilles or Agamemnon, makes it back to his home (p79, lines 529-537). Thus, when, at long last

Odysseus' makes his homecoming, he becomes the lone Greek hero from the Trojan War to

complete the hero's journey, which has in it the aspect of return to the hero's people and home.

Odysseus' is clearly then not only a positive hero, but one whom, perhaps, even surpasses the otherheroes he battled with in the Trojan War.

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Telemachos in Homer's The Odyssey: The Original Coming of Age Story

The preceding points being brought to light, it remains only to be proven that Telemachos'

heroic coming of age journey, is actually a coming of age story. This argument also becomes

obvious with a small amount of analysis of the first four books of the poem, which contain the

largest part of Telemachos' journey. To begin, one should first define what one means by coming of

age story and then compare Telemachos' story to that definition. A traditional coming of age story

or

Bildungsroman would be as defined by the 9 th edition of Princeton Hall'sA Handbook to Literature

as "A novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence to

maturity." In other words a story mainly concerned with an at least somewhat heroic character who

grows up, that is goes from innocence to experience, and learns to live in the world and society he

was born into in the best way that he can. If this definition is applied to Telemachos, it shows that

Telemachos' story is actually one of coming of age and a predecessor to many of the later Western

coming of age novels. The sole difference is that the definition states that it is a "novel," but there is

no reason to think that a coming of age story could not be told in another form, especially in a time

when the epic poem was the standard form of literature and the novel had not yet been invented. The

rest of the definition is an accurate portrayal of what happens to Telemachos in The Odyssey. Heleaves during the late years of his adolescence from the home of his mother to go out into the world.

He then goes "asking after his father" and in the process learns from the houses he visits the way a

great household should be conducted and how one should conduct oneself around company.

Basically, his coming of age journey, teaches him how to live in the society he was born into

properly, something he would not be able to do from the haphazard household that was his own with

the suitors. Finally in the end, after he and Odysseus have both returned he is described as a man

and a future king helping his father restore order to his household, for he is no longer a boy.

So, finally, one can see that due to the parallels Homer makes between Telemachos and

Odysseus and their respective journeys, and the fact that this then shows Telemachos to be a hero inhis own right, that, the first four books at least, are a heroic journey turned coming of age story with

Telemachos as the hero. Further, since Telemachos is the main focus of these four books, and we

have been shown his positive qualities through his parallels with his father, we can look at the

definition of a modern Bildungsroman to show that Telemachos' story is quite simply put, a

predecessor and maybe even father to the modern coming of age novels of today like Catcher in the

Rye and Great Expectations. For although the form may very well be different, and epic poem rather

than a novel, the content is there, and Homer has added one more accomplishment to his

achievements, the first Western coming of age story.

Works Cited

Harmon, William.A Handbook to Literature. 9th edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.

Lattimore, Richard, trans. The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper, 1999.

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