the flashback

• separates fantasy element from the real-life Ithaca books
• is a means of telling Odysseus' past, present and future
• allows him to find out about the current situation in Ithaca
• affects the response of the audience, who will feel a sense of complicity with the teller
• introduces dramatic irony: the audience know that the storyteller must have got the better of the aggressors
• allow us to view Odysseus as one of the company of great heroes, now dead
• provides a double irony for those who really want to probe the question of the narrative
• falls neatly into the underlying theme of xenia: this story is Odysseus' gift to the Phaeacians for their hospitality