Telemachus And The Suitors In Homer's Odyssey

In The Odyssey by Homer, Homer introduces the epic with a struggle between Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, and the suitors. Suitors plague the household, once inhabited by the missing Odyssey, devour all of its food, and amuse themselves within its vast halls. There, they try to wed Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, yet she refuses to do so. Telemachus and the suitors engage in a grand debate over the suitors’ use of the palace. Telemachus argues for their removal and the suitors argue to stay until Penelope agrees to marry. The suitors construct a partially convincing argument because while they use logos and pathos to show how Penelope tricked them, they ultimately resort to fallacies that reveal a lack of ethos that voids their claim. To start, the

Antinous explains how Penelope’s tricky ways deceived the suitors into staying in the palace. He paints Penelope as a deceitful woman who tricks the suitors into believing they will wed her. Penelope’s actions resulted in the suitors staying there for three years. His anecdote causes the audience to understand how the suitors were justified in staying in the palace. To further prove this idea, he describes how Penelope tricked them. For three years, “she’d weave at her great and growing web - by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she’d done” (Homer 96). He demonstrates how Penelope convinced the suitors to stay. She told them that she would be ready to marry once she finished her web. By giving them an idea of the time when they would be able to wed her, the suitors stayed eager to marry her. The suitors continued to inhabit the home until her weaving finished and as she refused to finish it, the suitors stayed there. As Penelope led them to believe they were meant to stay, they continued to inhabit her home. Antinous’ anecdote logically explains how Penelope’s