In book 1 of The Odessey, Athena reveals herself to Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, to tell him that he is trapped on an island and that she believes that he will come home. Earlier in the book Telemachus is angry that many suitors have come to his house in attempts to get with his “widowed” mother. The suitors tear up Telemachus’ house which angers him and leads to Telemachus trying to kick the suitors out. When he stands up to the suitors, they laugh at him and call him a child. The passage that I chose for this section is when Telemachus is sitting by himself fed up with all the suitors and looks over to see a stranger waiting to be let into the house. Telemachus walks over to the stranger and welcomes him in with a warm embrace. The stranger was dressed like a warrior and carried a spear which Telemachus put away for him. This passage is important because for one, Telemachus shows great hospitality even when he is angry. The guests at his house having been trashing his house but, when he sees a new guest, he still walks to them a treats them with the upmost respect and kindest greeting. The second reason why it is important is because Telemachus has never met this man before but sees him with a spear and in warrior gear which readers can then assume that Telemachus is being overly welcoming to this person because of the off chance that this stranger fought beside his dad and knows his whereabouts. This analysis turns out to be true because it was the Goddess Athena in disguise to tell Telemachus that his father is still alive but trapped on an island. She also tells Telemachus to become a strong man but that his father, Odysseus, will return some day.

One quote from the passage that stood out to me is, “… he set her spear beside a pillar in a polished stand, in which Odysseus kept stores of weapons. And then he led her to a chair and spread a smooth embroided cloth across the seat, and pulled a footstool up to it. He sat beside her on a chair of inlaid wood, a distance from the suitors, so their shouting would not upset the stranger during dinner; also to ask about his absent father.” This quote helped me better understand Telemachus for my theme of hospitality because of how welcoming he is to his guest. He takes them to a table far away from the suitors to give the guest a nice quiet place while also setting up a chair with cloth laid on it. The tone that I felt from this excerpt is one from movies when two people walk into an office to discuss business and one hands the other a shot glass with Burban. It had the secretiveness of that scene and also the welcoming. I understand what the narrator is trying to say because of how she sets up the scene. She explains how he set everything up for this guest in particular and specified that it was in private which I as the reader interpreted that whatever they were going to talk about was going to be secretive.

The main points from book one in The Odessey are that Telemachus has to be a good host to a bunch of guests who are rude and destroying his house with their antics. Telemachus shows off in this passage one of our themes, Hospitality. The biggest thing to take away from this book however is that Athena revels herself to Telemachus to tell him that his father is alive but captured. The second is when Athena then tells him that his father will someday return.