Theme Of Hospitality In The Odyssey

In the Odyssey, Odysseus is a character whose traits affect the plotline rather substantially, including the clever ways he uses his hospitality, as well as the negative impacts of his arrogance. Odysseus’ sense of hospitality helped him out of a bad situation when he, extended his “friendship” to the Cyclops and offered him wine when they found themselves trapped inside Polyphemus’s cave. He uses this to manipulate Polyphemus into a false sense of security, the Cyclops going so far as to tell Odysseus that he will make him a “gift that will please (Homer 306),” implying that Polyphemus believes Odysseus is being honest and sincere. Because Odysseus planned ahead, he then tells the giant that his name is, instead, “Nohbdy,” which will later …show more content…
His extraordinary arrogance gets him cursed by the very God who fathered Polyphemus, Poseidon. This means that their journey home, which was already hard enough, was now infinitely harder. In addition, Odysseus’s arrogance surfaces again when he comes home to Penelope and assumes she had been faithful to him throughout his entire absence, despite the fact that he had not been faithful to her. While Odysseus’ hospitality may have helped them out of one situation, his arrogance, under any other circumstance, more than likely would have ended with he and his crew eaten or drowned, and they were all very lucky their encounter with Polyphemus finished with many of them intact. Overall, Odysseus has the most effect on the situations that he and his crew are in, which means that the outcome could change for the better if he decides to be hospitable, or, evidently, for the worse if he is