...The Character of Achilles The Iliad by Homer is an epic poem that tells us about the famous Trojan War. Throughout this poem, Homer presented every character with their specific characteristics such as the role they played in each other lives, their flaws, and strengths and emotions that they evoked at particular settings in the course of this tremendous story. Achilles, the great Greek Warrior and principal character of this epic all along said things, did things and made choices that essentially took the story to a different direction. However, the question that still remains is if any of those choices changed Achilles himself. An analysis of books one, nine, sixteen, eighteen and twenty four from the Iliad will help us bring more clarity to this assertion. In book 1, Achilles expressed various types of feelings. As the greatest warrior of this whole war, he felt strong, powerful, proud and all mighty because he always came back victorious from battles with his army of Myrmidons for the past nine years. On the other hand, he also felt disrespected and concerned because Agamemnon decided to take possession of his “Timé” and members of his troops were dying. For all those reasons, Achilles decided to leave with the remaining members of his troops and go back home: “So home we sail…if we can escape our death-if war and plague are joining forces now to crush the Argives.” (68-70) In book 9, a delegation of 3 people (Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax) was formed by Agamemnon to convince...
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...Nicholas Dell Professor Daniel Richter CLAS 150g 10 October 2012 Achilles’ Speech What makes a hero exceptional? What separates heroes from the people around them? Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and their companions believed in a heroic code of sorts that defined how one should act in order to prove their honor and glory. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks and Trojans, there were two things that defined a hero: the quest for glory and the duty to protect. In Achilles’ speech to his companions Achilles attempts to hold up his own honor while shying away from his duty to protect. This juxtaposition of heroic and anti-heroic behavior creates an internal conflict within Achilles that causes the reader to question how heroic Achilles truly is. By abandoning his duty, Achilles also raises questions about his loyalty to his brothers, companions, society, and his own King. Achilles’ speech raises the question whether certain parts of the heroic code can be ignored or to what extent the code among heroes is actually followed. Arguably the most important part of the heroic code is kleos. Kleos is glory, prizes, and fame earned through fighting in battle. Achilles deeply desires everlasting kleos, but at what cost? Achilles has two choices according to Thetis, he says, “Either, if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans, my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting; but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers, the excellence of my glory is gone...
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...”. Campbell’s quote perfectly describes the ideal hero through their bravery and sacrifice. The Iliad, an Epic by Homer, describes an ancient Greek war between the Achaean army and the Trojan army ten years before the fall of Troy. A brave Achaean warrior, Achilles, is known for being well-respected and feared by his enemies. He leads his men into action with much ferocity and bravery. Outside of literature, Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani, received the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts on promoting education for women in the Middle East. She became a target by the Taliban because she was a role model for women controlled by the Taliban which they did not like. In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, the protagonist Achilles most closely fits the canon of “a hero”, as portrayed by Malala in her speech as a person who puts others before themselves, because they both risked their lives for the sake of another and they both were compassionate even towards their enemies....
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...You will lie and steal and kill and all that would be pardoned, reciprocated or paid for. The shield of Achilles warms the reader with luxurious detail and painstaking rhetoric of the land of Greece? Where women are seen dancing and waiting for the men on the threshold of the houses and where the heavens are blessed by the cosmos and the sun and the moon with no quarrel or envy between them. The city is described as full of bustling citizens alive and bursting with emotion. One of those emotions being anger in the lower levels of the shield; there is a man discussing payment with another. Payment for something that nowadays no one can place a value upon. The shield of Achilles contains many subplots and plot holes and gives the public...
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...Journal Essay #3 When the reader first opens Homer's epic poem The Iliad, the author's very first line states the poem's main premise: "Achilles' rage" (1); if that doesn't tell the reader anything, it's also the title of the first book. However, I've noticed that many people still find it difficult to determine who the heroic protagonist is in The Iliad. That's because the audience today doesn't believe that their view, of what constitutes a heroic protagonist, coincides with the typical heroic protagonist of the Ancient Greeks. Yes, contemporary readers will all probably agree that Achilles possesses a couple of the characteristics, that would make him a heroic protagonist (i.e. being extremely brave, ambitious for honor, physically strong, etc...). However, Achilles also possesses some less thought-of characteristics, that might cause contemporary readers to arguably disagree with Achilles being an heroic protagonist. Given all criteria that makes up an epic poem's heroic protagonist, and that The Iliad is considered an epic; I'm going to have to say, that (while others display qualities of heroic protagonists) Achilles is the most heroic protagonist of The Iliad. Some of the more controversial characteristics, that make Achilles the perfect candidate for being the most heroic protagonist include: ambition driven by glory and immortality, he fights something or someone god-like, he has a known companion, he has an outward physical element that's very prominent, he is...
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...The two characters Beowulf and Achilles share similar steps they go through during their journeys. Some of the similarities they both share include the heroic structure and/ or character they possess. Also, they both have people or things that help them through their success as heroes. Finally, they both have to face an ultimate test or supreme ordeal. These similarities are what really build up the story created by the authors, which are to be discussed. In both stories of the Beowulf and Achilles, the two heroes compared in multiple ways on their journeys. Beowulf and Achilles come off as this hero, or obtain hero-like personality. Both of them have “magical” powers. Beowulf has superhuman strength, which is clearly shown when he fights grendel, “He twisted in Pain, And the bleeding sinews deep in his shoulder Snapped, muscle and bone split And broke” (Raffel, 80). Achilles is “invincible” everywhere on his body except for his heel, which he obtained from his mother when she dipped him in a pool of invincibility, and he...
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...10/05/07 Achilles: The Tragic Hero The great hero Achilles, in Homer's The Iliad, was known to all Greeks for his strength, courage, and his ability to kill countless Trojans at impeccable speed. Also well known is the “Rage of Achilles,” which caused thousands of Greeks to lose their lives. Some critics have claimed that Achilles fits the Aristotelian model for a tragic hero: a noble character with a fatal flaw that eventually brings his downfall. However, I would argue that Achilles fits his own category for a tragic hero. Unlike the standard tragic hero that the audience sympathizes with, Achilles tends to lose audience support after his continued refusal to swallow his pride and save his dying comrades. Achilles' pride, greed, sense of honor, and hard-hardheadedness, eventually leads to the death of many of his friends, among them Achilles “beloved” Patroclus, as well as numberless other Greeks. Although Achilles never lost his life and the Greeks did not lose the war, it is tragic nevertheless. Achilles has remarkably few traits that would be seen as admirable by people in the world today. Achilles is primarily motivated by greed, thirst for honor, and an outrageous sense of his own self-importance. Initially, Achilles does not seem like he is in the wrong for holding a grudge against Agamemnon. Agamemnon shamed him in front of all the Greeks by publicly ordering Achilles war-prize, Briseis, to be taken for Agamemnon's own use. It seems right that Achilles should...
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...two heroes who stood out to me were Gilgamesh, and Achilles. Gilgamesh’s greatest fear was death, while Achilles feared his legacy being lost and forgotten. Technically their desires are different, but their journey share many similarities, and in the end, boils down to the same thing. Each man in his own way, both Gilgamesh and Achilles desired immortality above all else. Though immortality takes on very a different meaning for Gilgamesh, as it does for Achilles, every decision as well as all the sacrifices they make, are based on their fear of death and dying. Gilgamesh’s journey for immortality begins with the death of Enkidu. Gilgamesh’s heart breaks when he had to watch his brother die, which made him consider the prospect of his own mortality and inevitable death.(1) Gilgamesh fears his own death so much that he seems to be willing to risk everything including death, for a chance at an immortal life. Gilgamesh does not know what the future holds for him, or whether his journey for immortality will bear fruit. But Achilles on the other hand, was given all the information he needed to make an informed decision before his journey even began. His mother Thetis told him of his fate. If he chose to go to Troy, he would die in in battle and his name would be forever remembered. If he chose not to go to Troy, he would live a long life and have many children who would honor him. But his name would be lost to history.(2) Achilles was a warrior to his very core, no matter what fate...
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...In the Iliad, the characters Sarpedon and Achilles offer two different ideas on how one should live their life. Both fight with the concept of mortality and quality of life as they come to their conclusions of how they should carry themselves. Achilles believes that because life is so precious, that fighting for someone else’s glory or possessions is pointless. He would rather go home and live without glory with his father than win glory by fighting for Agamemnon. Sarpedon, on the other hand, believes that since is life finite, one should go out and win glory and fame for themselves. To live like a king for a short time would be much prefered to Sarpedon than to live simply for a long time. These views seem vastly different, however a closer...
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...The pride, rage, and ego of both Agamemnon and Achilles is so much they can never make an agreement and are continually arguing. They both believe they are better than the other, and always seem to find something to conflict about. The rivalry between Agamemnon and Achilles affects the conduct of the Trojan war because they make the war longer, they cause the killing of other men, and them hating each other causes more conflicts than the original reason the war even started. Agamemnon and Achilles make the war last longer than it was supposed to and they’re one of the reasons it took 10 years for someone to actually win. Achilles and Agamemnon make the war go longer because they were always arguing whether it was about women, who they were...
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...Achilles and Odysseus (An analogy of Achilles and Odysseus) The author Homer wrote about two very significant epic heroes. Those heroes were named Achilles and Odysseus. Achilles and Odysseus have many similarities along with differences. Homer wrote about these two specific epic heroes for a reason. Achilles plays a key role in The Iliad, whereas Odysseus has an essential role in The Odyssey. Achilles and Odysseus are the same in a sense where they both are war heroes, they both sexually use women, and neither of them think twice before killing somebody that wronged them in any way. Yet, they are both different wherein Odysseus is smart in many different ways and Achilles thinks very linearly, Achilles doesn’t look to get in fights whereas...
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...importance of both fatherhood and leadership helps the duo reach their aspirations. The introductions of Priam and Achilles in Ransom greatly differ from their true nature. While Achilles is considered a hero, he displays unfitting behavior such as allowing his companion to perish in battle, dragging around a corpse and sulking. Priam is initially described as useless, fitting the role of an apathetic king and father. Priam defies Malouf’s generalization by experiencing small pleasures that generate appreciation for the common man’s work and risking his life for the body of his son. Achilles is a general in the Trojan war. He displays great...
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...see that Achilles becomes very uncontrollable and unstoppable. The themes of Grief and Revenge also make a huge impact in this part of the Iliad. In Book Eighteen, Achilles has a lot of rage towards Hector for killing Patroclus. Achilles has a lot of honor. He is determined to get revenge on Hector. His goal is to kill Hector and to show him that he made a bad choice for killing his best friend. Achilles is very upset with Hector and is emotions are becoming overwhelming. Achilles is determined to seek revenge on Hector, because of the death of Patroclus. This causes Achilles’ rage to become very uncontrollable. In this part of the book, we can notice that Achilles’ rage is very uncontrollable. It seems like no one can stop his rage. His mother Thetis notices that he is showing a lot of grief. She doesn’t understand why he is very upset. She tried explaining to him that Zeus has prayed...
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...In Homer’s Achilles would be one of the primary Greek Mythology characters to be wordy for Dante’s vison of hell. The difficulty that xxxx would face is assigning Achilles to the right circle of hell, as he is suitable for most if not all. Although Achilles was dubbed a hero and his actions and motivations were acceptable for his time, by the time Dante wrote his works, many of the attributes possessed by Achilles, and ancient heroes alike were deemed sinful. Much of society view was influenced by the Church and by the time of Dante, the European social norms had also shifted, thus making ancient heroes sinners and hell worthy. In the first sentence Homer opens with “Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans” (128). Without going through the rest of Iliad, just based on this statement, Achilles would go to the fifth circle of the hell described by Dante, the circle off hell reserved for those that are charged with anger as a sin. As Vigil describes it to Dante, the residents of this circle are those overcame by anger and the sullen (Alighieri 622). Achilles was a skilled warrior, but many of his decisions were based...
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...Epic Hero: Achilles Story The Trojan War brought out many epic heroes but the best one has to be Achilles. Achilles was brave, strong, and loyal which means he would never betray his friends or pacts. Achilles was mostly immortal because his mother dipped him in the river Styx when he was a baby but he does have one weakness though and that weakness is his Achilles-heel. Achilles is the best epic hero because he has more traits of being an epic hero than anyone else does. Achilles is an epic hero because he is a strong and responsible leader and he goes on a quest with other soldiers to bring back a girl named Helen. Achilles didn't have to go but he wanted to because he was adventurous. He risked his life for glory(Homer, 68). He wanted his...
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