Homer's Use Of Violence In The Iliad

One cannot disagree that rage is a word with many possible meanings. However, one meaning that is almost always presence is the guarantee that violence will be shown. In Homer’s (800 B.C.- 700 B.C.) The Iliad violence is a major part of the story. The story starts out in the middle of a nine-year war. This war was started because of a girl. When Achilles gets his own girl stolen, the readers get their first glimpse of rage. Achilles then continues to pout for almost the entire book while the rest of the Achaeans put their lives on the line. Violence becomes the biggest player in the war as Achilles’ rage increases. There are three types of violence expressed in Homer’s The Iliad. Linguistic violence is the first type of violence that is shown in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad. Linguistic violence is the violence shown in words. Many people have made the discovery that The Iliad was

The Iliad is basically a big poem about war. You cannot expect to have a story about war without mentioning some physical violence. During this time, gruesomeness was not something that people would cringe away from like people of the present. In fact, the Achaeans seemed to enjoy the physical violence that was created. “Where collarbones lift the neck bone off the shoulders, the open throat, where the end of life comes quickest—there as Hector charged in fury brilliant Achilles drove his spear and the point went stabbing clean through the tender neck.” (Page 552, Lines 383-386). Describing this scene with such great detail shows that the Greeks were very proud of this moment. They did not see it as Achilles murdering somebody, but rather he was killing for the Greeks. Perhaps the terminology suggest that this example of physical violence could have been much more gruesome. However, killing people is always horrific in today’s world, making this scene viciously