572 Homer
Ultimately, Odysseus reaches home, unites with his
family, and slays the suitors who have plagued his
household. Through it all Odysseus is noted for his
cunning as well as his courage, his wisdom as well
as his might. The Odyssey is a grand adventure story,
full of themes like death, family, fate, heroism,
identity, and pride.
James Ford
Family in The Odyssey
While The iliad is a tale of violence and war, The
Odyssey is a tale of family and home. Odysseus, “his
heart set on his wife and his return,” does everything
he can to make it home from the war (78). The poem
begins by focusing on Odysseus’s son, Telemachus,
his “heart obsessed with grief ” at his father’s absence
(84). A crowd of suitors for his mother, Penelope,
are draining his household dry with their constant
feasting. The goddess Athena counsels him “like a
father to a son,” advising Telemachus to leave home
in search of news of his father’s fate. “Few sons are
the equals of their fathers,” Athena tells him, but she
assures him that he has Odysseus’s courage and cun-
ning (102). Telemachus travels to see Nestor, wisest
of the Greeks, who recognizes that Telemachus has
Odysseus’s tremendous eloquence. Nestor sends his
son Psistratus with Telemachus to see Menelaus,
and one observer says the two young men “look like
kin of mighty Zeus himself ” (125). The importance
of family is highlighted by the joy that Menelaus
and his wife, Helen, share. Helen abandoned her
child, her husband, and her home when she went
with Paris to Troy. Now she realizes her “madness,”
all the suffering and death that resulted (132).
Their reunited family is a model of domestic bliss.
Odysseus himself is certain of the value of family.
Although he did sleep with Calypso while on her
island, he was an “unwilling lover alongside lover all
too willing” (157). Odysseus perseveres through a
series of trials and adventures to reach his home. He
tells the Phaeacian princess that there is no greater
gift than a home and marriage in harmony, with
“two minds, two hearts that work as one” (174). His
homeland of Ithaca is almost as important as his
wife and son. As he says, “I know no sweeter sight
on earth than a man’s own native country” (212).
The family is mirrored in the country, particularly
for King Odysseus, who ruled Ithaca “kindly as a
father to his children” (94). But his greatest goal is to
be reunited with his wife and son.
Penelope is just as devoted as Odysseus to their
family, if not more so. She longs for her husband’s
return, delaying her suitors for years. In a scheme
worthy of Odysseus (and suggested to her by a god),
Penelope says she will choose a new husband once
she finishes weaving a shroud for Laertes (Odys-
seus’s father). Each night she unravels whatever she
wove during the day. The trick works for a full three
years before the suitors discover the ruse. Despite
Odysseus’s charge to choose a new husband when
Telemachus’s beard begins to grow, Penelope holds
out for her husband’s return. She is “the soul of
loyalty” (409). Her final test for the suitors—string-
ing Odysseus’s mighty bow—is another sign of that
loyalty. She longs for the days when her family was
whole, when her household was “so filled with the
best that life can offer” (409). In The Odyssey, family
and a happy home are clearly the best that life has
to offer.
The importance of a loving family is underscored
by the tragedy of Agamemnon, who is killed at his
return home from Troy. Aegisthus has conspired
with Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra to murder
Agamemnon, and the Greeks regard this as the
ultimate betrayal. Agamemnon’s only solace is that
his son Orestes avenges his death, a sign of how
crucial the father-son relationship is to the Greeks.
When Odysseus travels to the kingdom of the dead,
Agamemnon’s ghost begs for knowledge of his son’s
life. Similarly, Achilles’ ghost no longer cares about
the glory he won during life. Instead he asks about
his father Peleus and his son Neoptolemus. Achil-
les is thrilled to learn that Neoptolemus is gifted in
battle and in counsel. Similarly, Odysseus’s parents
suffer greatly at his absence. His mother, Anticleia,
died of grief and longing while Odysseus was away.
His father is also bereft, but he rejoices at his son’s
return. When he sees his son and grandson “vying
over courage,” it is the ultimate triumph for the man
and a fitting end to the poem (484).
Finally, the emphasis on hospitality reinforces
the importance of home and family. Nestor wel-
comes Telemachus, as does Menelaus—“Just think
of all the hospitality we enjoyed” (125). The Phaea-