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Lack Of Hospitality In Homer's The Odyssey

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In “The Odyssey” Polyphemus’s barbaric qualities and inhospitality was written by Homer mostly to represent the extreme cultural differences between the Greeks, including their gods, and the Cyclopes. A part of the writing which represents this well is is when Odysseus asks Polyphemus to extend his hospitality to him and his crew threatening the wrath of Zeus. Polyphemus then states that Cyclopes are stronger than Zeus and smashes two of Odysseus’s men brains out and eats them (IX. 318). This extreme lack of hospitality would rarely, if ever, occur in Greece, where people believed not providing hospitality to a stranger would result in punishment from the gods. Also, the fact that Polyphemus beat Odysseus’s men out with no provocation or reason

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