Achilles calls Lycaon a fool because he knows that pleading for life in the face of death is nonsensical. He believes that in a world where love and companionship has perished, death is the supreme truth, the supreme reality. He calls Lycaon a friend because he sees the common equality in both of them in the face of death. He knows that he belongs in a world where death makes all men equal. No one can escape it, nor rise above it, not even the finest of human beings.
The final transformation of Achilles comes in the last part of this poem when Priam comes to meet him and requests him to return Hector’s body. He and Priam, meet each other, not as warriors, but as men, touching each other’s flesh rather than trying to kill each other. They both are fated to perish soon and they both are filled with sorrow because of the injustice of human life. The intense suffering both have experienced has enabled them to unite in a single moment of human compassion. Achilles gives Hector’s corpse back to …show more content…
He no longer seeks revenge with Hector’s body. He and Priam, both, acknowledge the fact that they are simply, human beings, incapable of doing anything to avoid their fate.
To sum up, we can say that Achilles decides to proceed on his own belief, that he should take revenge of the death of Patroclus, when he was emotionally and physically aware of himself in his displacement from his comrades even though he knew the consequences of this decision, that it will result in his death. These characteristics of highly develop sense of understanding towards human life are not seen in the case of Hector. Throughout his entire life,