Sophocles Philoctetes: The Heroes Of Greek Tragedy

Heroes of Greek Tragedy tend to encounter situations that call their leadership and morals into question in their plights; for instance, Sophocles’ Philoctetes revolves around Greek leaders utilizing their talents and strategies to get Philoctetes to Troy to help fulfill one of the requirements to end the war. Philoctetes has the bow of Herakles, which is needed for Troy to fall, but the Greeks left him on the island of Lemnos on the initial journey to Troy because he has an infected foot that smells terribly. Correspondingly, the heroes have an issue to work into their approaches to convince Philoctetes, which is that Philoctetes detests the Greeks, especially Odysseus. As the play quickly becomes political, the Greeks make their cases to

Accordingly, the leaders face and question their personal ethics as they try to decide on a matter that affects the outcome of the Trojan War for the entire Greek army. Predominantly, Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and Herakles of Sophocles’ Philoctetes demonstrate three different styles of leadership among influential men of Greek tragedy through essentially deceit, righteousness, and glory; furthermore, Philoctetes’ responses to the leaders confirms the rationality and effectiveness of the varied approaches, despite his weighty distaste for Greek leadership.

Chiefly, Odysseus utilizes trickery to achieve his goal for his given mission, and he is perfectly open to lying along the way (Soph.1-8-9). In Philoctetes, Odysseus prays to first Hermes, god of tricks, then Athena and Victory before sending off Neoptolemus on his mission (132-5). Odysseus’ intentions are clear, as is his confidence in tricks’ efficiency. Since hearing the prophecy that Philoctetes is required to take Troy, Odysseus has set out to achieve his goal by any means necessary (610-5). By solely focusing on his objective, Odysseus fails to sympathize with Philoctetes immense pain, which is ultimately the downfall of his leadership. Sophocles innovates the myth by having Lemnos

Primarily seen in Philoctetes’ trust in Neoptolemus, he brands genuineness and righteousness to be the most desirable characteristics in comrades, and thus leaders. Initially, Sophocles innovates the myth by choosing to add Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus accompanies Odysseus to Lemnos, rather than Diomedes who Philoctetes has a negative history with. Moreover, Philoctetes has no reason to dislike Neoptolemus at the onset since he had no role in abandoning him, and he has fond memories of Achilles, Neoptolemus’ father; plus, he is rather virtuous in his approach as he tells the truth of Odysseus’ plan to Philoctetes. Nevertheless, Neoptolemus first follows the instructions Odysseus, a higher-ranking Greek, gave him to deceive Philoctetes. In his minor ruse, Neoptolemus still befriends and gains Philoctetes trust, and he acts honorably as he does not exploit this trust, as Odysseus would for his greater purpose. He even gets handed the only valuable object Philoctetes has, Herakles’ bow. Even then, he only directly lies about not knowing Philoctetes and his reason for being on the island. Before owning up to the truth, Neoptolemus does consider taking the bow, while Philoctetes has a spell of pain; however, he cannot bring himself to thoroughly betray Philoctetes, due to his conscience. Neoptolemus is quickly overwhelmed by his compassion for the pitiful Philoctetes, as he