Odessey Response Books 1-3

Owen Gund
8th Grade Fitz English

Section One

Odyssey Literary analysis

11/17/2013



Change



“ But I’ll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance… all of you destroyed in my house while I go scot-free myself.”

[ The Odyssey Book 2]



Over time people change.  In the epic poem, The Odyssey, by Homer, Telemachus changes from a boy and matures into a man. With the help of Athena, Telemachus is able to gain the courage and confidence to change his life and meet the challenges that face him in the first three books of The Odyssey.   

In the palace hall , when Antinous asks Telemachus about making peace, Telemachus gets mad and talks about his time as a boy when he didn’t notice that the suitors were harassing his mother so he didn’t do anything. He said that now that he is full grown and more aware of what is happening, he will take action on this problem.   

“Antinous, now how could I dine with you in peace and take my pleasure? You ruffians carousing here! Isn’t it quite enough that you, my mother’s suitors, have ravaged it all, my very best, these many years, while I was still a boy? But now that I’m full grown and can hear the truth from others, absorb it too- now yes, that anger seethes inside me… I’ll stop at nothing to hurl destruction at your heads”

[The Odyssey book 3]

Now that Telemachus is a man he can hear the truth and also understand it too. He is well aware that Antinous and some other suitors are harassing his mother. We know that he has changed because when he was a less mature boy he did not realize that his mother was being harassed by these suitors. But now that he has figured this out he has decided to search for his father so that Penelope won't have to marry a suitor.

As we follow the life of Telemachus, the changes that he has undergone have allowed him to mature as a man.