Analysis of Relationships in Ancient Literature

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“You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity” Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, once said. If there is one thing the history has thought us is that relationships are the most valuable things in our lives. We keep building and strengthening our relationships from the minute we are born. It is the fact that every individual has restricted capacities to live by him or herself. This makes everyone to character him or herself into social. Hence, a person builds a relationship between everybody. As we bond deeper and deeper we start to prioritize others life than ours. Relationships build one’s character at the same time they have enough power to cause change in one’s character both in positive and negative way. Loyalty is one of the fundamental traits that are present in a successful relationship. Without loyalty doubts of trust and lack of respect begin to come to the fore and relationships begin to crumble.

In this essay, I will be using poems The Iliad by Homer about the Trojan War, a conflict in which Greek warriors sailed the Aegean besieged the citadel of Troy for ten years, Antigone by Sophocles which is mainly focused on a brother sisters relationship and The Epic of Gilgamesh talks about the friendship between Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu to prove how important relationships are and their influence on one’s character.

Sophocles is an ancient Greek philosopher, who wrote one of the greatest tragedy poems of all time Antigone. Antigone is the girl who brought up alone and dies young sacrificing her life to her brother’s honor. Haemon, Antigone's fiancé, chats with Ismene, her beautiful blonde sister. Though one wo...

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...Trans. Robert Fagles. Literature and the Writing Process.

6th ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 605-640

• “Theme Analysis.” Antigone: Novel Analysis. 7 March 2002.

http://www.novelguide.com/antigone/themeanalysis.html

• "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Epic of Gilgamesh. N.p., n.d.

• Homer. "The Internet Classics Archive | The Iliad by Homer." The Internet Classics Archive | The Iliad by Homer. N.p., n.d.

• Sophocles. "The Internet Classics Archive | Antigone by Sophocles." The Internet Classics Archive | Antigone by Sophocles. N.p., n.d.

• George, Andrew. "The Epic of Gilgamesh (translated by Andrew George) « Multiple Reading Personalities." Multiple Reading Personalities. N.p., n.d.

• SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Iliad.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002

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