In Greek culture, it is considered very impolite to refuse a guest to enter your house. In most cases,xenia is good, when a guest does not overstay his welcome and does not eat too much food, but bad xenia can occur when a guest intrudes a house, stays for too long, does not treat the house with respect, and eats too much food. In the novel, The Odyssey, Homer reveals and illustrates the centrality of xenia in Greek culture by writing countless events of characters that show strong and poor hospitality including the encounters between Eumaeus and Odysseus, Menelaus and Telemachus, and the suitors and Penelope. He stresses the importance and normality for People to treat others this way as it reflects upon their own character as a host.
Eumaeus …show more content…
The suitors main purpose is to force Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, to marry one of them, while they trash the palace and torment her and Telemachus. Telemachus states,“As for giving orders, / men will see to that, but I most of all: I hold the reins of power in this house”(1.412-414). With no man in the house, he is forced to hold it down and protect his mother from these suitors. This is very courageous for Telemachus to say as a young boy. Although these suitors exhibit poor xenia, Telemachus says, “But if you decide the fare is better, richer here, / destroying one man’s goods and going scot-free, all right then, carve away” (1.433-435)! This quote is very important because the suitors are very impolite visitors, but Telemachus and Penelope continue to show their hospitality by allowing them to live in the house. They ransack their food, sleep all over the house, and annoy Penelope, but as good host’s, they feel obliged to let them stay, although they want them to leave very badly.
Good and bad Xenia plays in huge role in Homer’s The Odyssey. Without it, Telemachus and Odysseus would not be able to make the journeys they made or stay with the people who honored this code of hospitality. Although it may seem unimportant, xenia will continue to play a huge roll for everyone throughout the