Nikki Sears. Breakage Of The Laws Of Hospitality. 23 Feb.

The Odyssey is an epic poem about a man named Odysseus who is trying to get home from battling in the Trojan War 10 years ago. On his way home, he battles mythical creatures and faces the wrath of the gods. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus try and outsmart suitors who want Penelope's hand in marriage. Eventually, Odysseus gets home and fights off the suitors and his family lives happily ever after. Throughout the journey, Odysseus experiences a lot of different kinds of hospitality. Odysseus experiences good hospitality with Nausicaa, but he had some bad hospitality with the Cyclopes. Odysseus showed hospitality as well when he brought food and wine to the Cyclopes.

Hospitality describes one's respect towards their peers when an invitation to a host’s house is involved, and can be expressed differently based on one's personality and actions. Through the Odyssey, characters display different examples of hospitality practices. How someone displays hospitality, determines the treatment the person obtains in return. As Odysseus and his crew encounter the cyclops, Circe, and the Swineherd, they receive hospitality as guests on a varied spectrum. The cyclops displayed poor examples of hospitality through his barbaric actions.

Hospitality is mentioned all throughout the book. Hospitality is important to the people in that time. Zeus’s law of hospitality is that any stranger that comes to your home, the host must be willing to feed, entertain, and maybe offer them a bath and anything else they might be in need of without question until those things had been given, and also give them a parting gift. “It’s wrong my friend, to send any stranger packing-even one who arrives in worse shape than you. Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us, they’ll find it welcome.” (Book 14 pg.303 Line 64) This statement shows how important it is that the people follow Zeus’ law of xenia. Along with providing great hospitality the guest has to be respectful as well. Some of the biggest parts in the book that shows hospitality is with the Cyclops, and the goddesses Circe and Calypso, the suitors and the Phaeacians.

Historically, anthropologists have focused their research on foreign cultures, often considered exotic to westerners. Yet, globalization has created a continuously shrinking world and is increasingly providing sovereignty for developing nations, which may impede research opportunities for modern anthropologists. In their book, “The Cocktail Waitress,” James Spradley and Brenda Mann explained how this semi-recent issue threatens trust and acceptance in these foreign communities and obstructs unique opportunities and research funding. Luckily, there are countless subcultures in America’s back yard, in which most are eternally evolving, providing a multitude of research opportunities for anthropologists.

Hospitality is a key role shown throughout The Odyssey. It is an essential part to the poem. During the poem, Homer shows how people treated one another. Each island that Odysseus visit there is a different component of hospitality. What a great host would do is welcome their guest, feed them proper food, treat respectfully, let guest leave, don’t question identity, and finally give them a gift. In this essay I will be talking about how hospitality is important in “The Odyssey” and how it hospitality differs between places.

Although some might disagree, hospitality of strangers impact a life. In the Hatchet series, by Gary Paulson, there is a lot of hospitality. In the first book, Hatchet, Brian has been stranded out in the wilderness for a very long time. He has used the emergency kit and thinks that the distress signal is broken.

A lack of dignity was shown throughout A Lesson Before Dying in the characters of Grant, Jefferson, Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Vivian. All of these characters in the novel struggled with their lack of human morals which reflected on their impertinent actions towards themselves and among others. The story takes place in the1940’s small Cajun town of Bayonne, Louisiana. In this time period there was an abundance of racial segregation between african american people and a strong bias towards white people. This shouldn’t be an excuse or reason of why there was very little dignity throughout the novel. Furthermore, Ernest J. Gaines gives us plenty of examples of how these characters showed this lack of dignity among themselves and others.

This course has not been anything remotely close to what I imagined it would be. I pictured a class where we discussed voting, civil service, and the community. One which involved little to no reflection or inner thought. However, I have found myself reflecting and digging deeply. This class has put many of the major issues facing America’s communities in the forefront. We have traded lectures on paying taxes for discussions on privilege. Through the assigned readings and classroom content, I have found myself more knowledgeable on the topics at hand, and more established in my own beliefs.

Throughout the development of humanity, the random group of societies have been historically all-equipped to deal with challenges the state of disorganization is not conducive to advancement of society due to the chaotic nature of existence on planet earth. Humans have to impose will on a chaotic world. One way they can do this is through culturally perceived definitions of hospitality. In the Odyssey, written by Homer, Odysseus experiences various forms of hospitality. Odysseus’s journey is so long is that he is forced to the obligation of accepting the welcoming hospitality of people he meets along his path. This helps Odysseus and Telemachus learn about being away from home by some places being welcoming, and some places being not welcome. Hospitality is a way of life in a wide variety of cultures. The ways people in certain cultures act towards their guest may differ. Great hospitality has been apart of Greek culture for a good amount of time now, as it is seen many times in the epic. Characters open up their living area numerous times in the Odyssey. Main characters Odysseus and his son Telemachus were invited into many homes, where they were given anything they wanted on a silver platter until they had to depart on their journey again.

Look closely at the guest/host relationship. Describe three points in the story where you see this dynamic and the significance/outcome of these three situations. What do these scenes reveal about Greek life and the importance of the hospitality code?

The origin of hospitality comes from the concept of traveling. In ancient times, travelers wandered on unknown regions of the earth in pursuit of trading gifts both material and nonmaterial, knowledge, and creating a network with people. Traveling to foreign areas expanded civilization and led to further innovations. It was a profound way to have business with other cultures, cultivate relationships with others, discover different types of food, clothes, and people. Such connections among natives and foreigners were very common among the Greeks during the Mycenaean Age. Greece is known to be a country that’s surrounded by bodies of water such as the Ionian Sea, Aegean Sea, Thracian Sea, Sea of Crete, and Gulf of Corinth. Although walking was

Hospitality is one of the most important and heroic facets of Greek culture that needs to be covered when examining the story line of the Odyssey. There are many settings within the Odyssey that contain both positive and negative connotations of hospitality, and it is important to explore both sides and see how they relate to each other.

Hospitality is an important part of Homeric society and is clearly shown in the Odyssey. Closely related to Xenia, the Greek relationship between guest and host, hospitality provided a practical solution for safe travel into the territory of others. Hospitality shown toward strangers and travelers is a significant feature in many of the myths and stories of the ancient world and help us to understand why it was offered; what was expected, and how their actions reveal some deeper understanding about ancient society.

Myths are a valuable source of archetypes of human attitudes, themes and symbols. Myths not only deepen people’s knowledge about life and beliefs of the ancient Greeks, but also present the image of the contemporary worldview and system of values. They represent attitudes and patterns of timeless values, and raise the universal content. One of the most frequent themes of myths is the context of suffering. Suffering is not onlyt the domain of people, but suffering also affects gods and goddesses. Although Niobe and Demeter belonged to a fellowship of queens and goddesses, just like mortals they had to cope with adversity; they struggled with vices, and suffered pain. Moreover, they were subjected to fate as every human beings.

Furthermore, another evidence that I found in this media piece is that Merkel insists that missing regions in 18th century shown in the map did not belong to China. This drags me to consider whether the principle of obligation has been broken by giving embarrassing gift. Lashley (2008) argued that obligation within hospitality industry means that hosts should have obligation to show their respectful manners, showing no hostility to their important guests, even subtle hostility such as putting guests into embarrassment. In this situation, Merkel should have the obligation to provide Chinese guests with happiness and entertainment. Nevertheless, insisting the idea that missing areas shown on the map of 18th century is not the part of China, to