"You are no longer a child: you must put childish thoughts away." Athena, the goddess of wisdom, told Telemachus, as he turning into an adult. Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, was born short before the outbreak of the Trojan War. Nevertheless, Odysseus had to fight at Troy for ten years, and when the war was over he was unable to find his way home. As time passed, neither Odysseus nor his army returned to Ithaca, many started to believe that he was dead. As reading this epic, Odyssey, readers can find some of the troubles that Telemachus need to confront. The three main troubles are destroying the mob of the suitors who wasted his estate, searching of his losing father, and finding his self-confidence, which all will be discussed in this essay.
During the absence of Odysseus, a group of suitors came to his estate to court his wife. They refused to leave Odysseus' palace unless she married one of them, and in the meantime they consumed Odysseus' estate in great parties and banquets. As Telemachus took gray-eyed Athena's advice, he summoned an assembly, and there gave the suitors a formal notice to quit his palace, admonishing them to feast elsewhere, or in each other's homes. He also revealed their main outrages: how they wasted the palace's wealth in great parties, enjoying a life free of charge, and how they badgered Penelope with unwanted attentions.
In other to exterminate the suitors of Penelope, Telemachus needed to find his father. Taking the advice that Athena gave to him, he sailed to Pylos and Sparta, to find out, by meeting Nestor and Menelaus, whether he could learn about his father, or by chance pick up a truthful rumor from the gods. Fortunately, Telemachus found out from King Menelaus that Odysseus was still alive, kept as a prisoner in an island somewhere in the ocean by Calypso, a goddess-nymph who loved him too much to release him back. While with the good news, Telemachus immediately returned back to Ithaca; however, the suitors were planing to murder the prince.
