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Ulysses' Feelings Toward His Family in Tennyson's Poem

Summary:

In Tennyson's "Ulysses," Ulysses expresses dissatisfaction with his domestic life, viewing his wife, Penelope, as a symbol of aging and confinement, contrasting with his desire for adventure. He regards her as "aged" and a reminder of his lost youth, indicating a preference for exploration over marital life. Ulysses acknowledges his son Telemachus's competence in ruling but feels a lack of shared adventurous spirit. Overall, Ulysses's focus remains on seeking new experiences, leaving family life secondary.

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What are Ulysses' thoughts about his wife?

Ulysses gives the impression that he's as bored with his "aged wife" as he is with all other aspects of his kingly life. Penelope reminds him just how old he is and how far away he is from that golden youth of heroism and adventure. There's more than an element of misogyny in Ulysses's lamentations. He gives the impression that a life of wedded bliss is no such thing—that marriage saps what little energy he has left. The only real life for a man, it would seem, is a life away from his wife. A real life is one spent on the high seas in pursuit of new worlds and new horizons.

In Ancient Greece, women were forced to occupy very limited roles in society; their lives were largely restricted to home and hearth. Ulysses's complaints about his life of stultifying domesticity could be said to express fears that, as well as losing his energy so long as he remains at home with Penelope, he's also losing his masculinity. Essentially, he's becoming feminized. For a noble Greek warrior like Ulysses, that's a humiliation too hard to bear. The only conceivable way he can regain his masculinity is by leaving Penelope behind to embark upon yet another epic voyage.

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What are Ulysses' thoughts about his wife?

The short answer to this question is that Tennyson's Ulysses doesn't like his wife at all. A more specific answer would be that, for Ulysses, Penelope is a personification of everything that he hates about infirmity and domestic exile.

Though Tennyson only mentions Penelope once (Ulysses dismisses her as "an aged wife" [3]), much can be read into her presence in the poem. All in all, the poem discusses the anguish of growing old, losing one's strength, and having to relinquish the glorious adventures of youth. Ulysses' wife Penelope is a representation of Ulysses' frustration with domestic life and growing old. She is both a symbol of old age and a symbol of home, and so she is a perpetual reminder for Ulysses that, rather than struggling with the gods on "the ringing plains of windy Troy" (17), he is old and bored and confined to Ithaca, reduced to nothing more than nostalgic longing. As such, though she does not have a large direct part to play in the poem, Penelope represents the fundamental conflict of Tennyson's text.

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In Ulysses by Tennyson, what are Ulysses' feelings toward his wife and son?

The characterization of the Greek hero offered in Tennyson's poem does not dislike his wife and son, but cannot see staying with them either.  The overriding characterization of Ulysses offered is one where the domestic life is associated with the uneventful, the banal, and the mundane.  This is antithetical to the life of adventure and spirited essence of the life lived as a warrior, fighting for kingdom and honor.  In his mind, the life of the family and of domesticity is one that lacks the spirit of the life of the warrior.  While he certainly does not hold his son or wife in a disdainful light, he does believe that he cannot be true to his own identity while remaining with them.

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In Ulysses by Tennyson, what are Ulysses' feelings toward his wife and son?

I'm afraid his wife doesn't get much mention in Tennyson's "Ulysses."  The only thought the speaker has of her is that she is "aged."  He opens the poem:

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,...

Telemachus fares a little better.  Ulysses wants to leave his kingdom to him, and considers his son a worthy successor.  Tennyson writes:

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the scepter and the isle?

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill

This labor, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and through soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of ternderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone.  He works his work, I mine.

Telemachus is more suited to ruling--rather than adventuring--than Ulysses is.  Ulysses loves him and recognizes that his son is better at domestic duties.  He will subdue the people with "soft degree," and lead them to the good and the useful.

Both his wife and son, though, are secondary in the poem.  Ulysses' interests in this poem lie in adventure, and his family is not a part of that.

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In Tennyson's "Ulysses," what do references to Ulysses' wife and son suggest about his feelings?

In Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” the title character makes comments about his wife and son that seem a bit surprising. Thus, in line 3 of the poem he mentions that he is “Matched with an agèd wife.” This, ironically, is his only reference to the woman from whom he suffered an enforced absence of twenty years! Penelope was (and is) usually considered the ideal wife – emotionally loyal, sexually faithful, wise, clever, and supremely determined to resist the blandishments of the many men who tried to court her while Ulysses was away for two decades. The fact that Ulyssses thus dismisses her with one word – “agèd”—seems somewhat shocking. Perhaps he means to suggest that she has lost her youthful spirit. Perhaps he is regretting that he did not take better advantage of his erotic opportunities when he was younger. The fact that he expresses no regrets about leaving his loyal wife also seems unusual. Even more unusual is the fact that he apparently takes no time to bid her farewell or even to explain to her the reasons for his leaving. Surely he cannot be addressing her in this poem; if that were the case, he would be a true cad. Thus Tennyson’s poem gets off to a surprising start, to say the least.

Ulysses’ comments on his loyal, brave, resilient son, Telemachus, can also seem unexpected:

This my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and through soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

Ulysses acknowledges the political skills of Telemachus as well as his moral virtues, but there seems a bit of a tone of condescension in his remarks. This is especially true when he refers to “common duties.” It is as if Ulysses is more than willing to let his son do the everyday job of ruling the kingdom while he, the father, goes off in pursuit of new adventures. This is the son, by the way, who was merely a small boy when Ulysses left to go off and fight at Troy. This is the son who essentially grew up without a father. This is the son who also had to deal with scores of greedy potential stepfathers while his real father was absent.

In short, by contemporary standards, Ulysses’s behavior and attitudes seem hard to comprehend.

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