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Achilles literary analysis heroism
Gender roles during the time of the iliad
Gender roles during the time of the iliad
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Men within the Iliad are shown to be insane, bloodthirsty people who refrain from showing any form of mercy towards others. Hector, after leaving his wife and ignoring her heartfelt warnings, heads out onto the battlefield where he proceeds to kill the Greek hero and friend of Achilles, Patroclus. As Patroclus' breath slowly slips away from him, Hector speaks words of insult aimed towards the great warrior: "And I with my spear, / Hector, shining among my combat-loving comrades, / I fight away from them the fatal day - but you, / the vultures will eat your body raw!" (439) Hector, unlike his gentle and compassionate wife Andromache, is actually an insane killer who thirsts for the blood of his enemies. He shows no mercy and attacks Patroclus
In The Iliad, Hector isn't always shown as a courageous character. In book 18, Achilles discovers Patroclus is dead. Upon the realization that Hector is to blame, he is ready to rejoin the fight against Troy. The Trojans start to lose their courage until hearing Hector’s speech in which he says, “Tomorrow at daybreak armed to the hill for battle we slash to attack against their deep curved Hills!...I for one, I'll never run from his grim assault.(18.353-357)” In
Patroclus, best friend of Achilles, is an excellent example of greed leading to destruction, a common theme in the Iliad. Achilles was unwilling to lead his men, the Myrmidons, to battle. He wanted to punish Agamemnon for taking his war prize Briesis. However, Patroclus was more than willing to lead Achilles men into battle. Wearing Achilles armor made him appear to be the fierce warrior and this ruse was used in hopes of scaring the Trojans into retreat. Achilles ordered Patroclus to return to the ships after the battle but drunk with power Patroclus decided to push forward after his victory in pursuit of Hector. Apollo tried to intervene and thrice he warned Patroclus to back down but with Achilles brave men behind him Patroclus continued to pursue Hector. Patroclus unknowingly attacked Apollo after Apollo attempted one more time to stop Patroclus from almost interfering with Achilles fate. Patroclus, who was so engrossed in battle and reaching Hector, did not even realize it was a god he attacked even as Apollo landed the killing blow from
The Iliad, being the first great book, is described in many ways from a summarizing standpoint. The first word of the Iliad is rage. Rage is a feeling of anger that originates from true feelings of regret, loss, and love, and fury in one which then is put forth through a response to that stimuli. This stimuli is the result of what Homer loves to portray in the Iliad to us; death. The bloody and gruesome descriptions of the many battle scenes are what turn the reader into an intrigued yet somewhat horrified of these sights and results. The sad thing about those results is that it’s an actual person lying there; a father, son, brother, grandfather, or even a husband, who “But on the ground lay, dearer to the vultures than to their wives.” This connection proves that once that line is crossed, the dead become nothing and the killer will either continue on in fight and survival or
Anyway, this was the main reason Homer wrote the Iliad. The specific story of the Death of Hector shows tells the story of Hector, who wants to fight Achilles outside the city gates. He refuses his father’s request to come inside and be protected. In the end he is killed. This entire episode shows the way one should act.
The Ancient Greeks admired their heroes and tried to learn from both their achievements and their mistakes. They believed that most great leaders and warriors followed a predictable behavior cycle, which often ended tragically. In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Achilles is a great warrior who traces the stages of the behavior cycle twice, from arete to hubris to ate and then to nemesis. Achilles is a highly skilled warrior and a great leader who becomes a narcissist and an arrogant person, which leads to selfish and childish behavior resulting in the death of his best friend. Following Patroclus’ death, Achilles repeats the behavior cycle by regaining his courage and motivation, and goes back to battle against Hector. The pride he feels in killing Hector and his overpowering hatred for him, leads Achilles to another bad decision: disrespecting the body of his enemy. This foolish choice leads directly to Achilles death. Although The Iliad is mainly known as a story about the Trojan War, it is understood as a story about Achilles and his struggle to be a hero.
“ My Hector. It is for him I have come to the Greek ships, to get him back from you. I’ve brought a fortune in ransom. Respect the gods, Achilles. Think of your own father, and pity me. I am more pitiable. I have born what no man who has walked this earth has ever yet borne. I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son” ( Book 2...
Representing the struggle between his dominant, selfish, and Dionysian nature as an epic hero and his hidden empathetic Apollonian core, Achilles reveals the mythos of the Iliad which states that war degrades mankind into objects and only the pursuit of Apollonian regard for others renews their humanity. Early on in the Iliad, readers realize that Achilles is primarily a Dionysian man in nature who often acts on his impulses to strive for glory and seek revenge. The three things men want most—power, possession, glory—are the primary motivations for Achilles’ impulsive actions. When describing his anger after the taking of Bryseis, he states that she is “a prize [Achilles] sweated for and soldiers gave [him]” (Homer 1.189). The praxis of Achilles illustrated in this quote shows his inner desire for glory, a trait that is often associated with that of a Dionysian because it deals with inner passions and the impulsive nature of man.
In Book 21, Achilles kills a hostage at his mercy, whose life he has sparred in the past. By the end of Book 21, Achilles has killed so many Trojan’s that the river is clogged with the bodies of his victims. Achilles behaves without a care for human life, as well as his treatment toward Hector before and after he kills him. As stated in Blucher’s article, Achilles is found to go berserk, committing atrocities to both living and dead. This, for Shay, is the story of the Iliad and also as Shay goes on to demonstrate, the story of many Vietnam combat veterans”. (Blucher). Before their battle Hector begs Achilles to honor his corpse if he is killed in war, and Achilles refuse, saying, “Don’t try to cut any deals with me, Hector. Do lions make peace treaties with men? Do wolves and lambs agree to get along? No, they hate each other to the core, And that’s how it is between you and me, No talk of agreements until one of us Falls and gluts Ares with his blood” (Homer). His statement of intent to dishonor Hector’s corpse and to damage the body after his enemy’s death, shows that he had anger towards his superiors. The most disturbing portrayal from Achilles is his behavior, when Hector’s father Priam meets with him to ask for Hector’s body. This show Achilles’ anger is driven by rage towards other superior officers in the
Throughout the text, major characters seem to be at constant battle with their different emotions. This inner conflict is mirrored by the everyday conflicts between the gods. Just as Zeus and Hera are constantly at odds with one another, so are the different sides of Achilles: his cultural responsibility, pride, honor, and revenge. No one is completely at peace with his or her conflicting emotions in The Iliad – and therefore, neither are the gods, who represent these emotions. Hector is a prime example of a human who finds himself torn between two forces: his love for his growing family, and his duty as a prince of Troy. He admits to Andromache that he worries about his own mortality, but emphasizes that “I would die of shame to face the men of Troy…if I would shrink from battle now, a coward.” (Homer 6: 523, 525). Hector’s deeply ingrained sense of honor and loyalty to home is clearly established in the beginning of the text. Therefore, when Zeus later grants Hector “power to kill and kill till you cut your way to the benched ships” (Homer 11: 241-242), it is not too much of a stretch to attribute Hector’s dodged perseverance to his upbringing and rigid sense of duty, rather than to the
Revenge in The Iliad it the main theme and drives men to do things that they would not normally do. The main example of this is Achilles wanting revenge on Agamemnon. The first book of the Iliad explains that Achilles wants revenge because Agamemnon is forced to return Chryseis, his war bride, to her father, and he decides to take Achilles war bride from him. According to “Some Thoughts about the Origins of ‘Greek Ethics’”, by Nicholas D. Smith, “Agamemnon’s unjust affront to Achilles leads to and extraordinarily deadly retaliation, the ultimate outcome of which is that multitudes of these men’s innocent allies are killed unnecessarily”(smith 10). This is out of character for Achilles, who would normally be the first man into battle, not sitting one out. By “rejecting even the most earnest and impressive entreaties Agamemnon offers, and increasingly making decisions which are rationally indefensible”, he shows how much his wanting of revenge has turned him into a madman (smith 10). His only desire is to get revenge for his loss. It takes the death of Patroclus, his dear friend, to bring him back to the war, which he has left.
Book Six of The Iliad depicts one of the most interesting conflicts depicted by Homer in this poem, one that occurs between both Hector and Paris in a passage approximately between 380 through 410. Through the context and language Homer uses to illustrate this conflict also explores certain characteristics of these two Trojans. This characterization of Hector and Paris is important as it scrutinizes the brotherly relationship that exists between these characters, offering insight into their personalities and characteristics. The language that Homer uses to describe the conflict in this particular passage establishes the relationship and characteristics of Hector and Paris through the conflict, highlighting the fundamental aspects and values
Hector fights for belief and respect while Achilles fights out of rage and rashness. Achilles is not respected by his men, rather he is feared. Nobody wants to receive the blunt of the attack when Achilles randomly flies into a rage, therefore his men are terrified of him and allow him to do as he pleases. Within the first book of the poem, we read that Achilles is considered by many to be "god-like". (King Agamemnon, Book 1, line 154)
After that part, Achilles shows vengeance when he talks about how he wants to kill Hector. 'I will not live nor go about mankind unless Hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for having slain Patroclus, son of Mencetius.';
...h Agamemnon and wishes that ‘strife could die from the lives of gods and men’… Not to avenge Patroclus by killing Hector would be a renunciation of all that he stands for and has lived by”. Even though “sorrow fell on Achilles like a cloud” (216), he went back out to the battlefield and killed Hector. It took a great deal of bravery for Achilles to face the man who killed his best friend but Achilles, being the hero that he was, got back into battle and killed him because he couldn’t let Patroclus’ death go unavenged.
In the poem, Iliad, Achilles and Hector both show relative heroism in their own different ways. Achilles may have been the more popular hero, but Hector had great heroism as well. Each of these characters possess their own different strengths and weaknesses. These two characters both have pride as being one of their main weaknesses. Hector seems as if he would suit best in the modern world, but there are a few different reasons as to why the ancients may have chose Achilles. Hector and Achilles both lost a lot by letting their pride get in the way of their heroism. Both of these characters were their country’s best warrior. Achilles and Hector have very different personalities, and very different ways of approaching situations.