Tracing the Relationship Between Penelope and Telemachus in the Odyssey

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. 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 were born into such situations. So the wealth of the family did not only determine luxury and status it determined the ability to care for all the members who needed care including Telemakhos mother, siblings and servants such as the beloved Nurse who secretly prepares the provisions for Telemakhos trip to find news of his father. The same Nurse whom Telemakhos makes the boldest statement of his fondness for his mother. "Take heart Nurse There's a god behind this plan. And you must swear to keep it from my mother,... She must not tear her lovely skin lamenting." (Homer Book II, 30) The men he spoke to took Telemakhos' public expression of fear of loss of wealth very seriously. It was a serious accusation asking both protection and redress for the losses of his family home and the honor of his Mother's wishes, which he defends repeatedly to those in favor of the suitors' rights.

At least initially the men who represent her must assume the voice of Penelope herself on both love and loyalty through the retelling of her feelings and actions. Telemakhos, telling of her desire to remain faithful and the spokesperson in favor of the suitors' telling of the trickery she uses to keep the suitors at bay. These displays seem clearly to be a description of a dutiful wife and mother fighting against cultural norms to be both loyal to the husband she is reported to love well and society expecting hospitality be shown to real, present and living rivals for her hand after such a long absence of her husband. Much later, in Book Nineteen Penelope speaks herself of her loyalty to the disguised Odysseys himself: