Essay about Immense Heroism in Homer’s Iliad - 1664 Words

Immense Heroism in Homer’s Iliad The Iliad opens with the anger of Peleus son, Achilleus, (1.1) and closes with the burial of Hektor, breaker of horses (24.804).1 The bracketing of the poem with descriptions of these two men suggests both their importance and their connection to one another. They lead parallel lives as the top fighters in their respective armies, and, as the poem progresses, their lives and deaths become more and more closely linked. They each struggle to fulfill the heroic ideal, and they both grapple with temptations that lure them away from heroism. While Hektor embodies the human heroic ideal, Achilleus strives to surpass human heroism to achieve some identification with the divine. These delusions of†¦show more content†¦He is also very attached to his wife, Andromache, the rest of his family, and the entire city of Troy. When he travels into Troy to fetch Paris, he makes a deliberate detour to visit his family and they bid him to remain within the city walls. But although he loves hi s family intensely, he resists the temptation to remain with them. He says that he must answer the call to win for my own self great glory (6.446). He is determined to stay on the path of the hero, but it is very difficult for him to resist the pull of his loved ones. Just before his fatal encounter with Achilleus, he is almost swayed by his family to stay within the walls of Troy. Why does the heart within me debate on these things? he asks himself. (22.122) He is constantly torn between heroism and familial ties, but he finally chooses the path of glory as he turns to face Achilleus, his murderer. Achilleus, on the other hand, strays from the way of the hero by denying his mortality and fancying himself a god. He is, after all, the son of a goddess. But Thetis could not endow her son with immortality, only with greatness. 2 Achilleus attitude towards the battles taking place just outside his ship is reminiscent of how the immortal gods react to the battles. For most of the poem, he sits back from the fighting and observes it from afar. When the members of the embassy come to entice him back into the battle, they find him delighting his heart in aShow MoreRelatedThe Iliad And The Odyssey1317 Words   |  6 PagesThroughout The Iliad and The Odyssey, both Achilles and Odysseus go through intense acts of heroism, internal and external hardships, and fluctuations in confidence. During the epic, The Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus, has to endure many hardships which show. He has to show tremendous amounts of heroism and confidence just to keep his crew and himself alive. He has to rival and face many gods that despise him along with many humans. This theme can also be reflected from Homer’s The Iliad, where theRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Julius Caesar1641 Words   |  7 Pagesrealization of the fact that King Hamlet was betrayed. EZ Hyperion is one of the 12 titans, born of Gaia and Uranus, who represented the Earth and Sky correspondingly. He is the god of light and fitting titled the â€Å"High One†. Along with possessing immense power himself, he is also the father of a major Heavenly bodies, like the sun God Helios and the moon Goddess Selene. Hyperion is a symbol of power and is considered the Titan of the pillar of the East. Hyperion, along with the other Titans, was overthrownRead MoreJohn Milton s Paradise Lost2283 Words   |  10 Pagespeople write Epics, to tell of cultures unknown to many, and interpret stories of the past. The genre of the Epic poem has been molded by the authors and storytellers, as each author writes different stories and comes from different cultures. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey would not have had the Trojan war as such an integral event if the city-states of Troy and the Greek city-states had not been warring so often. Paradise Lost would not have been written the way it was if at all if Christian societies