How Is Hector A Foil To Achilles

Death of Hector was pictured differently in the poem and in the film. In the Iliad, Hector behaved cowardly, running from Achilles around the walls of Troy several times until the gods tricked him into fighting. Alternatively, in the movie Hector behaved bravely, fighting until his last breath. This is because Hector is used as a character that the audience could sympathise and identify with: a mature family-oriented man, future king of Troy, responsible leader who regrets killing Patroclus because of his young age. He acts as a foil to Achilles’ outbursts of emotion and his extremes and excesses. Running from a fight would be a pathetic end for a heroic character and it doesn’t correspond with the codes of masculine behaviour, so Wolfgang

Petersen altered the events, making Hector’s death seem noble. In this way, Hector was one of least flawed characters in the movie and ultimately “the good side” that the audience could pick. Furthermore, Hector’s courage made abuse of his corpse seem more violent and unfair. To an audience of Homer’s age, abusing a dead body wasn’t just a cruel act. It meant dishonouring Hector, denying his individuality, refusing him a passage to afterlife by not giving him a proper burial. This is shown in the Book 22 of the Iliad, where dying Hector begs Achilles to send his body home so that the Trojans can bury him with necessary funeral rites.

Achilles shows no mercy: “I wish I had the heart and strength to carve you up and eat you raw myself for what you’ve done to me.” (Iliad, Book 22). There are multiple theories of why Achilles wishes he would be able to eat Hector. Achilles’ implication of cannibalism can be explained by his own words: “That’s idiotic, like a faithful promise between men and

lions. Wolves and lambs don’t share a common heart—they always sense a mutual hatred for each other.” (The Iliad, Book 22).

Perhaps Achilles’ threat didn’t implicate cannibalism because he did not see Hector belonging to the same species as himself (i.e. men and lions, wolves and lambs). Alternatively, perhaps making an analogy between predatory animals and himself might have propelled Achilles towards near-bestial behaviour. Then, there is another reason for Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s corpse. Achilles, being from Thessaly, reenacted the Thessalian custom of dragging the corpses of murderers around the tombs of their victims. In this way, Achilles assigned Hector to a hateful class of murderers. Moreover, by dragging the corpse face down, he enacted the defacement, aiming to remove the features of Hector’s face. Overall, Achilles’ brutality was exceptional and even the gods took pity on Hector which demonstrates the severity of Achilles actions as the Greek gods were amoral and rarely showed sympathy towards the mankind. This demonstrates the extent of Achilles’ fury and hate towards Hector for killing Patroclus.

Another important aspect of the Iliad is involvement of gods in comparison to their almost total absence in Troy. In the

Iliad, gods have a massive influence on the course of war. This is because during Homer’s time there was a tendency to present a world where the deites influence the fates of humans. People of Homeric age strongly believed in gods and didn’t question their impact on human lives. For example, the god sent plague to the greek army because Agamemnon had insulted Apollo. Moreover, in Book 1 of the Iliad, when Agamemnon was arguing with Achilles, the latter was so furious that he was considering killing Agamemnon and had already slid his sword part way from its sheath. At that moment, Athena came to calm Achilles, saying: “For I say to you, and this will happen, because of Agamemnon’s arrogance some day gifts three times greater than this girl will be set down before you. Control yourself. Obey.” (The Iliad, Book 1). The promise of greater gifts calmed Achilles and he obeyed Athena’s orders: “Goddess, men should follow your instructions, though angry in their hearts. It’s better so. The person who’s obedient to the gods, the gods attend to all the more.” (The Iliad, Book 1). Achilles, although engrossed in his fury, is still respectful towards the gods. On the other hand, in Troy Achilles doesn’t believe that the gods are able to influence his fate. This is shown in the scene in which he and his soldiers sacked the temple of Apollo and Achilles beheaded the statue of Apollo. This act is extremely provocative and unrealistic as the Greeks feared gods’ punishment and knew that they would punish them for any sign of disrespect, also known as hubris, toward the deites. The scene of beheading a statue of Apollo can be explained by the change of beliefs of an audience over the years. Viewers of XXI century tend to have far more sceptical approach to things than people of Homeric time. Modern audience would not appreciate the gods making every decision for human characters and predicting their fates beforehand, hence removing any unexpectedness or suspense. In this regard, Petersen removes the gods as a motivating force from his narrative and uses their absence to emphasise the human element, making Troy a story of strictly human cause and effect. The film provides rational explanations for every event that in antiquity was explained by the irrational. An example of this can be provided by a scene of Agamemnon’s and Achilles’ quarrel. A description of this scene in the Iliad was provided above: Achilles almost killed Agamemnon, but was calmed by Athena. Alternatively, in Troy, when Achilles drew his sword, it was Briseis who stopped him by begging for an end to violence. Petersen chose to highlight the role of Briseis in order to depreciate the importance of the gods. Briseis not only took command over Achilles, but also replaced Athena. In this way, it became clear that Troy is a battle between humans and all the tensions and emotions are entirely human.