The importance of the cloak in Homer's OdysseyTowards the end of the fourteenth chapter of Homer's Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus, announces that he is going to tell a story to his swineherd, Eumaeus and many other workers inside the swineherd's hut. Odysseus warns the men that his story is the result of drinking with them, but the story is actually a test of his swineherd's character. Disguised as the son of Castor, a beggar dressed in rags and without possessions, he tells the men a story about fighting alongside the man he secretly truly is. Homer highlights Odysseus' great mind when he plays the part in its entirety, even when his story is distorted for today's reader. In the tale, his fellow soldier in Troy, Odysseus, is able to manipulate another soldier into accepting a request for reinforcements so that Castor's son can sleep under the cloak of the departing messenger. Both in his story and within the hut, Odysseus is the manipulative character. , and the end result of both is the temporary use of a cloak under which Castor's son can sleep. Knowing the swineherd's limited resources and his abundance of cloaks in the house, Odysseus frames his story so that the swineherd considers lending his guest the use of a cloak rather than telling a story with the moral of be generous and give gifts. The swineherd can show hospitality to his guest without suffering any loss by lending him a cloak. This insight shows the maturity and development that Odysseus experienced during his journey home; a younger and less experienced Ulysses may not have considered the importance of the difference between lending and giving when the guest is a man in his employ. For twenty years Odysseus was away from his home in Ithaca, and during this time he faced several events that would change the way he saw the world. Witnessing events such as a Cyclops breaking the skulls of six of his innocent soldiers (Homer 132) and feeding six more of his men to a six-headed beast (Homer 186) played an important role in the changed man who returned. Even if a changed Odysseus awoke on the beach of Ithaca, he would have to force all the lessons of two decades out of his personality and into efforts to regain his life; he would have to use the strength gained from his experiences to hide his identity behind a mask of weakness.