Journey

Od-ys-sey, a noun, 1)  An extended adventurous voyage or trip.  2)  An intellectual or spiritual quest:  an odyssey of discovery.

       As the title suggests, "The Odyssey" tells the story of a journey; however, the title does not simply refer to the Odysseus's quest to return home from Troy, and the adventures he has along the way.  The odyssey of the of epic poem's title also refers to the figurative journey Telemachus takes from boyhood to manhood.  When the poem opens, "in media res," it opens in the middle of the story.  For the first four books of the poem, the focus is not on Odyssey's voyage home, but rather on Telemachus's journey from pushover to tough guy.  In his father's absence, the goddess Athena guides him along the way.  By Book Two, Athena, disguised as Mentes, has convinced Telemachus to get rid of the suitors, to stand up for what he believes, and also to go on a journey of his own in search of news of his father.  Telemachus first heads to Pylos, to get word about his father from Nestor, and then goes to Sparta to ask Menelaus for any news of his father.
     At the beginning of the poem, Telemachus is a pansy, who lets the suitors eat his food, try to date his mother, and basically rule his life.  With the help of the disguised Athena, he begins to slowly develop his character and find his own potency.  At the beginning of Book Two, he has found the bravery to call for the first assembly that Ithaca has held since his father left for the war.  You can see the progress he has made and also how much farther he has to go in his journey to manhood by examining how he acts during the assembly.  He stands up to the suitors and the rest of the men for the first time in his life saying, "You should be ashamed of yourselves, mortified in the face of neighbors living round about!  Fear the gods wrath - before they wheel in outrage and make these crimes recoil on your heads" (p 95). However, by the end of his speech he burst into tears like the boy he still is, "Filled with anger, down on the ground he dashed the speaker's scepter - bursting into tears" (p 95).