Tom Holland’s Odyssey Character Has One of the Most Overlooked Stories in Greek Mythology

Before Odysseus makes it home, Homer follows his son Telemachus as he searches for a father he barely knows and tries to keep his family’s home from being taken over.

Tom Holland plays Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The Cyclops and the Sirens are easy to picture when someone mentions Homer’s epic. The scene I’d point a first-time reader to happens much closer to home. A young man in Ithaca watches a stranger arrive at his door while the men trying to marry his mother help themselves to another meal. He gets up to greet her.

The stranger is Athena in disguise. Telemachus has no idea who she is, but he offers her a seat and a meal while the suitors carry on with their feast. It’s a small moment of courtesy in a house where the men with the most power have stopped behaving like guests. It also gives us a glimpse of who Telemachus is before anyone asks him to be brave.

This article discusses plot details through Book 16 of Homer’s Odyssey*.*

What is the Telemachy in The Odyssey?

The Telemachy is the name for the first four books of Homer’s Odyssey. They follow Telemachus in Ithaca and on a journey to Pylos and Sparta as he seeks news of Odysseus. By the time the poem turns to Odysseus on Calypso’s island in Book 5, we’ve already seen what his long absence has done to his household.

In Book 1, Athena visits Telemachus disguised as Mentes, an old friend of Odysseus. At her urging, he calls an assembly in Book 2 and tells the people of Ithaca what the suitors are doing. Speaking publicly takes nerve. It also exposes the limits of his authority. The suitors blame Penelope for keeping them waiting, and the assembly breaks up without making them leave. Telemachus sails that night with Athena’s help.

Why Telemachus goes looking for his father

Odysseus went to Troy when Telemachus was an infant. By the time the poem opens, nearly twenty years have passed since he left. Telemachus wants to know whether his father is alive. If Odysseus is dead, he can give him funeral honors and the family can begin to make decisions about its future. Until then, the suitors have every reason to keep treating the house as theirs.

In Book 3, Telemachus visits Nestor at Pylos. Nestor has stories about the Greeks’ return from Troy, but he cannot tell Telemachus what happened to Odysseus. In Book 4, Menelaus tells him in Sparta that the sea god Proteus saw Odysseus alive on Calypso’s island. It’s the first concrete lead Telemachus gets, though his father’s return is still out of his hands.

The moment that stays with me comes before that news. When Menelaus talks about Odysseus, Telemachus lifts his cloak to hide his tears. Menelaus notices, and Helen recognizes the young man by his resemblance to his father. Imagine traveling all that way for a scrap of information and discovering that strangers know your father well enough to see him in your face. In Book 8, Odysseus hides his own tears under a cloak when a singer performs a story about Troy. The two men are still apart, and Homer has already shown us something they share.

What Penelope’s suitors mean for Telemachus

Every feast costs the household livestock and provisions. Every day the suitors stay makes it harder for Telemachus to imagine exercising authority in his own home. Penelope buys time by promising to choose a husband once she finishes a burial shroud for Laertes, Odysseus’ father. She weaves by day and secretly undoes her work at night until the trick is exposed.

The danger becomes unmistakable in Book 4. When the suitors learn that Telemachus has sailed, they plan to ambush him on his return. The same men who want to marry his mother are willing to kill her son. It’s one of the most chilling turns in the opening books, especially after watching them dismiss him at the assembly. The moment he begins to act on his own, they take him seriously enough to fear him.

How Telemachus changes Odysseus’ homecoming

Father and son finally meet at the swineherd Eumaeus’ hut in Book 16. When Odysseus reveals himself, Telemachus initially thinks a god is deceiving him. Once he believes him, they embrace and cry. Then they have to figure out what to do about the suitors. Telemachus hears his father’s proposal and immediately points out how badly outnumbered they are.

That exchange is my favorite reason to read the opening four books closely. The young man who once needed Athena’s encouragement to speak now tells the most celebrated strategist he knows what he’s up against. Odysseus has spent years trying to get back to the family he left. He comes home to a son who has learned enough in his absence to tell him something he needs to hear.

Read Homer’s Odyssey. Start with Books 1–4 for Telemachus’ search, then return to Book 16 for the reunion. Emily Wilson’s translation is available in a W. W. Norton paperback.

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Find Emily Wilson’s paperback translation of The Odyssey on Amazon

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