Andromache In The Odyssey

The relationships between parents and their sons in the Iliad are not relationships we expect to see in today’s society. The Iliad portrays the relationships between fathers and sons as something more than just physical and emotional. It is based on pride and respect for one another. The expectations of their son are more so to pass on their fathers reputable name and to follow in their father’s footsteps of being noble warriors. These relationships are the driving forces in the Iliad, making each son in the Iliad identifiable first by their father’s name. An outcome of the father–son relationships is ancestral loyalty among the characters which play a prominent role in war. Therefore, not only does the Iliad share a major war story, but

The Greek forces won the Trojan War. The story of the war is a cornerstone of Greek legend, and pervaded Greek literature and culture. Though the evidence for the Trojan War as historical fact is scarce, it was a formative event in Greek cultural memory, producing some of the classical world’s most famous heroes and narratives. The War was won, Helen was retrieved from Paris, whose violation of ξενία was redressed, the heroes attained the κλέος that many of them fought for – and yet the positive outcomes of the Trojan War are difficult to grasp. For the victims of the Trojan War, the tragedy is obvious; the War ended in genocide and total cultural destruction. But such a war, burnt into legend, should have left the victors far better off; and yet, the Greek heroes only suffer because of it. They die tragic, dishonourable deaths; their households are left in ruin; their families are torn apart. From both modern and classical perspectives, the Trojan War is a tragedy, a “harrowing destruction of life” (Euripides, Andromache, 291). The victory is pyrrhic, the loss of life is horrific, the reparations non-existent.

When it comes to death, most people tend to sympathize with the victim of death while others dwell on the pleasures the deceased had brought them while they were living. In our readings there were many instances where the individuals were remembered for the honor and glory they showed and for the extreme measures they took for leaving this world a changed place. The differences in reactions to mortality in our texts is most apparent. People strive to give their lives meaning in the face of death in each of the texts, however there is a difference between what is worth dying for. Throughout the Iliad and in the bible, Jesus and Hector die for different reasons; while on dies for honor and glory, the other dies for the salvation of others.

In the book ‘The Odyssey” the author assembled a paradoxical tone through his choice of diction. The word paradoxical means “having the nature of a paradox; self-contradictory.” The author used the words: Dawn, appease and Nobody to display the paradoxical tone in the book.

The Iliad, by Homer, is an epic poem set in the era of the Trojan War, accounting the battle logs during the time of conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles, the text’s tragic protagonist. The heroic outlook on life, in Iliadic terms, is exemplified through the construction of one’s honor through hard work. Being an aspect of the heroic outlook of life, this value is demonstrated through his contribution and dedication to the Trojan War, his experience with neglect from the deities, Achilles’ overall disdain towards Agamemnon, and, lastly, his longingness towards Briseis, his dear lover.

For the ancient Greeks, culture is of the utmost importance. Greek family values are so strong that elements of tradition and culture transcend many generations. One particular tradition, literature, is a custom that has been passed down from generation to generation. Thousands of families, from their parents to their children, are told the stories of men and women who grew up and became great warriors that saved the world. These children later grew up with the goal of becoming those same heroes; they grew up wanting to save the world just like the characters in the stories. In this particular epic, we encounter the characters of Achilles and Hector, both ideal warriors; one uses his physical aptitude, the other his intellect and desire to

It is important to keep reading, “The Odyssey.” Even though it is 2800, years old, students still need to learn about it. It is important to continue studying “The Odyssey” because is it a moral story, the historical significance is important, and it is essential to study other culture’s mythology.

Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still not returned to his native land Ithaca. A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful—though weakening—wife Penelope, and going through his stock for food. With permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemachus to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan to ambush him upon return.

A critical element of classical tragedy is gruesome, gruelling, and often heart wrenching deaths of characters, regardless of whether or not they are central figures to the plot as a whole. The first example of this found within in Book II of Virgil’s “Aeneid’ is the encounter with Hector’s ghost. A once great hero of the Trojan race is belittled into a grim description: “his beard was filthy, his hair matted with blood”. Whilst the murder of Hector is not the main focus within the ‘Aeneid’, nor even within Book II, it is still a greatly tragic death due to the vulgar actions of Achilles. In fact, Hector still retains the appearance induced by his gruesome death, further adding to the tragic nature of his death. Another example of tragic death within Book II of ‘The Aeneid’ is that of Priam – the old king of Troy. He is slain by the cruel Pyrrhus, after witnessing the murder of his own son: “defiling a fathers face with the murder of his own son”. Not only is that event in itself tragic, but also Pyrrhus then dragged Priam “through pools of his own son’s blood” to an altar at which he was killed. This event within Book II exemplifies the tragic nature of heroic deaths for a multitude of reasons. The first is the obvious cruel nature of death within a great battle. During this time period it was a common occurrence for young men to head off into battle in order to defend their own nation. However, Priam was an old man, and for him to die in battle is a tragic occurrence in

When authors write, they want to engage the reader. To achieve this, authors use various methods such as having an easy-to-follow storyline; likewise, they may apply many lessons between the lines of their words. Homer’s The Odyssey is an excellent case of the latter. Though the specific events that the characters go through differ from anything a person would go through in the twenty-first century, the messages that the author was conveying have the same impact on people today as they did when The Odyssey was written, c.800 BC.

In Homer’s Iliad and Thucydides ' History the death of loved ones and the mistreatment of their bodies provoke a variety of profound emotions and reactions. The mistreatment of Patroclus’ and Hector’s bodies results in the inability of the soul to pass into the afterlife, the grief of families and friends, and, once the funeral takes place, the celebration of their kleos and timē by their communities. The catastrophic plague in Athens, by contrast, creates a state of hedonistic lawlessness among the citizenry due to the unpredictability of death and the breakdown of democratic ideals as previously articulated by Pericles, while the civil war in Corcyra shows the personal animosity people have to one another and the violent inclinations within social groupings.

Even though Achilles best comrade is about to fight in a war, and could possibly die, he is still worried about his pride and honor. Hector’s pride clouds his judgement, ultimately leading to his death, and foreshadowed in the Iliad, the fall of Troy. " Let

The most powerful warriors in this story were Hector and Achilles. Both men were given the title of heroes and displayed great power, skills and courage. But the values of Hector and Achilles were very different from one another and very different from the people of today’s society. Dignity, pride, honor, glory, fame, and revenge are very important to these people as it still is today, but it is achieved in a

Hector’s wife Andromache begs him not to “make [his] boy an orphan and [his] wife a/widow,” (Homer, Iliad 6.432-3) and he agonises at the thought of his wife being enslaved after his death (Homer, Iliad 6.454-5). Despite Hector’s family having no active part in the war, the story highlights that it will still have a significantly tragic effect on their lives. Instead of focusing on the glory of a death in battle, Homer chooses to expose the grief that will be left over in the aftermath of the War. This same attitude is echoed in Euripides’ Women of Troy, when Andromache speaks of her tragic fate following the Trojan War, and the chorus sings “you suffer as we suffer… how deep in grief we stand” (Euripides, Women of Troy 35). Here, the chorus reflects the families united in their grief at the deaths of the Trojan War, and to an extent, the families’ of all Greek soldiers who die in

The epic, the Iliad written by Homer, describes the rage of Achilles and the effect that the Trojan war has on its soldiers. The Iliad stresses the importance of the heroic code, which requires men to prioritize war above everything else, in order to receive the honour and glory which determines a man’s status in society. Hector and Achilles both represent opposing perspectives of the heroic code. Hector’s emphasis on the importance of family, alongside his increasing pride, are juxtaposed against Achilles, to present the way war corrupts men by desensitizing them as they lose touch with the aspects of life beyond battle. The consequences of war are displayed throughout the relationship between Achilles and Hector. Hector's role as the model warrior is a foil to Achilles' refusal to abide to the societal customs of war, which emphasizes Achilles' inhumanity. This suggests that the inhumanity inherent in the heroic code negatively impacts soldiers as it causes them to value war over personal relationships.