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Building a Novel—the Bildungsroman

In the epic poem The Odyssey, Homer portrays Telémakhos, the son of Odysseus, as a young man trying to find his place in the world. The opening part of the book, the Telemakhiad (the first four books in the poem) is perhaps meant to be a bildungsroman, which studies the maturation of a young character by focusing on this maturation with respect to his or her traits and environment by, in turn, making him or her face a series of social encounters. Starting out little more than a boy, Telémakhos matures over the course of the Telemakhiad and finds himself close to achieving his implied dream of being a man—or rather of becoming one like his hero of a father. Indeed, the Telemakhiad, the story of Telémakhos' short yet crucial adventure to find his father, fits the description of a bildungsroman; Telémakhos, being taught and initiated in the ways of the world by the actions of Athena, matures a great deal in the open of the book alone.......

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Approximate Word Count: 1652
Approximate Pages: 7 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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