Fatherlessness in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’

Chaos reigns in Ithaca and in our modern times

The “Odyssey" by Homer is about how a father puts his home in order. "A Reading from Homer," Lawrence Alma Tadema. Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Public Domain)

When we think of Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” written in the late eighth or early seventh century B.C., we think of the monsters. We picture the raging Cyclops hurling stones at Odysseus’s ship, each massive rock sending up towers of spray from the glinting surface of the Mediterranean. Or we think of the swirling waters around Charybdis as the creature swallows gulps of “the wine-dark sea,” to use Homer’s lovely epithet, while Odysseus struggles to stay out of the beast’s reach. We might also question what an ancient swashbuckling tale like this could have to offer modern readers.

But Homer’s main concern in the poem is not monsters, or magic, or adventure, though the story contains a generous helping of all these. He focuses, rather, on questions of home, family, and especially fatherhood—themes that certainly resonate with us today.

“The Odyssey” at its core is a domestic poem, concerned with what it means to have a nation, a household, a spouse, a child.

“No finer, greater gift in the world than that … when man and woman possess their home, two minds, two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies, joy to all their friends,” says Odysseus in Book VI (Robert Fagles’s translation), and these words reflect his own desire to reunite with his wife and son. This deep passion drives him on through all the weariness and woes of his 20-year ordeal, first in the Trojan War, then in trying to return from it.

Homer calls him “long-enduring Odysseus.” He endures for the sake of seeing home again.

Trouble at Home

Homer shows us, too, how easily the peace of the home can be disturbed. In “The Odyssey,” we see what happens when the nation lacks its leader, when spouses are torn from each other, and when children grow up fatherless. During Odysseus’s long absence in fighting the Trojan War, all is not well on his home island of Ithaca. As the years pass, the people of Ithaca come to believe that Odysseus, their king, is dead.

As a result, a host of young suitors swarm around Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, hoping to win her hand—and with it the kingdom. These men invade her estate and live off her and Odysseus’s wealth. They lounge about Penelope’s banquet hall, drinking and laughing, harassing the servant girls, apparently unconcerned with the insult they offer to Odysseus’s memory and the dignity of his wife.

The young men brimmed the mixing-bowls with wine. They reached out for the good things that lay at hand, and when they’d put aside desire for food and drink the suitors set their minds on other pleasures, song and dancing, all that crowns a feast. (Book I)

The suitors think only of amusing themselves. They’re the extreme form of the dinner guest who overstays his welcome. And such an abuse of hospitality was considered even more disgraceful in the ancient Greek world than it would be today.

The Greeks abided by “xenia,” the sacred laws of hospitality that guided the relationship between guest and host. Hosts were supposed to welcome everyone, making sure guests had food and drink before even asking them their names. In return, guests were to respect and honor their hosts, offer gifts in return, and not impose for too long.

The suitors have abandoned these sacred customs of their forefathers, but no one steps in to put an end to this behavior. Chaos reigns in Ithaca.

Chaos reigns in Ithaca, but no one steps in to put an end to this behavior. "Penelope and the Suitors," 1911–12, John William Waterhouse. (Public Domain)

What has made these young men so shameless, so uncontrollable, and so ignorant of sacred traditions? The answer is fatherlessness.

Odysseus wasn’t the only man of Ithaca who sailed to Troy; a whole generation of fathers left the island when they took up arms against the Trojans. And a whole generation of boys grew up without the guidance of the older and wiser men of Ithaca.

Is it any wonder that these boys failed to mature into men? Is it any wonder they never learned to seek anything besides childish pleasures? Is it any wonder they have forgotten the customs of their ancestors, such as xenia?

How to Be a Man

More than anyone else, fathers bestow on boys a knowledge of the traditions of a society and why they matter. Good fathers also teach their sons to use their masculinity to serve and protect others, rather than to take advantage of them.

Without these teachers, boys do not know how to be men, and they fail to discover the links they must maintain to the past or, worse still, they scorn those links. If a boy does not see his father take cultural traditions seriously, he will often conclude that those traditions aren’t important.

Homer’s wisdom echoes down to us through the ages, and what was true of the importance of father-son relationships then remains true now. That thought should worry us, given that in the United States 18.4 million, or 1 in 4 children, live without a father in the home.

Is it any wonder that young men today, like the suitors in Odysseus’s halls, have lost touch with their own cultural traditions? And that, lacking any high ideals, they often turn to video games and pornography; they “set their minds on other pleasures”? The lack of fathers in homes bodes ill for us. And the same notion applies on a cultural level, too.

Since our society has largely discarded Homer and other fathers of Western civilization, we shouldn’t be too shocked that the treasures and wisdom of our culture are endangered.

But despite the grim picture that Homer paints of a disordered, fatherless society, the poem ends on a profoundly hopeful note. When Odysseus returns, he immediately combats the chaos. And his greatest ally is his son, Telemachus. Telemachus was just a baby when Odysseus left for Troy, but he is now 20 years old and has done his best to avoid the faults of his generation.

Telemachus stands by his father, Odysseus, to challenge those who have threatened his home. “Odysseus and Telemachus Killing the Suitors,” 1812, by Thomas Degeorge. Roger Quilliot Art Museum, Auvergne, France. (Cropped image, Sailko/CC BY 3.0)

Under the influence of his father, Telemachus blooms into manhood. He grows strong enough to stand by his father’s side when Odysseus challenges those who have threatened and hounded his wife and servants.

Glancing into each other’s eyes, father and son feel the surge of love, strength, and trust needed to face the suitors together, and the damage of Telemachus’s fatherless childhood heals almost instantly.

Homer put hope for the restoration and defense of the home in this filial bond. And if the Greeks saw hope for civilization in that most fundamental of relationships, between father and son, perhaps we can too.