Term Paper on "Hector and Achilles in the Iliad"

Term Paper 5 pages (1396 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Achilles and hector are depicted as great warriors in the Iliad, but they also are different individuals, with different reasons for fighting. From the first, the clash between them is envisioned as a turning point, and when it occurs, Achilles is triumphant but also out of control so that he dishonors the other warrior. This leads to a further act of revenge and finally the death of Achilles.

Warriors in Ancient Greece were men who demonstrated immense strength, honor, and great courage during battle. In Homer's the Iliad, both Achilles and hector are depicted as great warriors, but they are also depicted in different ways. They both have certain strengths and weaknesses and different leadership qualities. They also have different motives for fighting and behave in different ways according to their characters. Achilles is beset by the sin of pride, which colors his judgment and causes him to commit an offense against decency after he defeats Hector. Hector acts more nobly and is defeated honorably in battle, and Achilles is also defeated, his vaunted vulnerability having a flaw that becomes his downfall.

The action of Homer's epic the Iliad brings two huge armies together, one inside the walls of Troy and the other outside, as a massive act of revenge for the stealing of Helen. More immediately, though, the poem depends on the desire for revenge on the part of Achilles. Achilles is a great warrior, as noted, and he is also a proud man who knows his own worth and who is not shy about telling others. At the beginning of the Iliad, Homer indicates through an invocation to the muse that the theme of this work is the anger of Achilles and its aftermath: "sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, / murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, / hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls" (Iliad, Book I, lines 1-3). This anger is evident from the first as Achilles argues with Agamemnon almost coming to blows before the intercession of the goddess Athena: "Achilles stayed his burly hand on the silver hilt / and slid the huge blade back in its sheath. / He would not fight the orders of Athena" (I, 257-258). Achilles is totally dedicated to fighting and to achieving glory on the battlefield, and he does not want to hear any talk of home or family. He wants only to fight the Trojans and succeed. He has been very successful in battle, and it has made him overly proud. He therefore cannot accept the orders of Agamemnon as the poem begins, and he is humiliated at losing the argument to Agamemnon and spends much time after that brooding in his tent. His overweening pride is the hubris that marks the tragic hero, and he becomes a tragic hero when he realizes his error, too late to correct it.

Achilles withdraws from the fighting to brood, but he relents sufficiently to send his friend Patroclus in his place. Patroclus is slain by Hector, and Achilles blames himself and seeks revenge. He feels great dishonor at having failed his friend, though in truth he has also failed all the Greeks by brooding rather than by fulfilling his destiny as a warrior. In Book IX, the Greeks have reached a point of near defeat, and Agamemnon is about to give up and go home. He sends a messenger to try to assuage Achilles and bring him back to the fight because he is sorely needed, but he will not relent. The leaders of the Greeks agree that they should never have appealed to anyone as conceited as Achilles and that they must fight the Trojans without him. After the death of Patroclus, however, Achilles attacks the Trojans as if he would defeat them single-handed. He is motivated by the desire for revenge, coupled here with a need to justify himself, and when he kills Hector, he goes too far by dragging Hector's body behind his chariot and by refusing to allow the body to be buried. This necessitates an even greater act of revenge and leads to Achilles' death. Revenge in these stories is a back-and-forth matter, with each… READ MORE

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