Examples Of Glorification In The Iliad

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Glorification in Society Past and Present The epic poem The Iliad by Homer is a tale of war, revenge, wrath, and death, or at least four chapters of it is. The story opens in medias res, in the middle, of a ten year war outside the walls of ancient Troy. The war starts when a Trojan prince ran off with the wife of King Agamemnon, who uses this as an excuse to attack and conquer Troy. Because of one affair, and because of one man’s need for more riches and land, tens of thousands of men fought and died. King Agamemnon forced his country into a war because he held women and wealth on a higher pedestal than his men's lives, and his men fought because they considered death in battle to be honorable. Thousands of years ago a ten year war was fought because women, wealth, and war were glorified in society, and today the case is the same. King Agamemnon’s wife, Helen, was said to be one of the most beautiful women ever, but to the king she was a only a trophy. Later in the epic, he and the warrior Achilles argue over who gets the girl Briseis, not because of who truly wants her but because she is considered a spoil of war, a prize to show to the army. They treated women as objects, albeit objects of higher value, but …show more content…

The greeks believed there was honor in death in battle, when in reality it’s just senseless violence. There is no honor in dying for an unjust cause, like the cause of Agamemnon. War by today’s standards is less violent, but arguably more glorified. Songs, movies, tv shows, all types of media make out all soldiers to be heros, doing brave work on a daily basis. War is ugly, awful, horrifying work, and while everything soldiers do is brave in their own way, no one should make it look glorious like the media does. Both the Greeks and modern day media make going into war look like distinguished and honored work, when war should never be looked forward

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