Edith Hamilton Atonement Quotes

The greek myth of Hercules is one of the most popular myths ever told. It tells of his strength courage and perseverance. Throughout this essay, I will be writing about Hercules' life and back story, the trials he faced in his life from the mistakes he made. Also, I will be explaining Hercules' cultural significance to the Greek.

Hercules is not the hero that greek mythology glorifies him to be. His ruthless acts to “purify” himself from killing his family, are nothing but him following commands of robbery, whether it be of a life or possession. He is less of a hero and more of a modern day hired ‘hitman’. Hercules agreed to completing the twelve tedious labours, however bad they might be. If he was ordered to steal something, he would. If he was told to kill something, he would do it. His actions are more alike the ones of an assassin or hitman rather than a selfless hero.

Greek mythology has been passed on and retold over generations. Literature and movies have been created to entertain as well as provide specific themes based off of myths. There are many heroes that mythology talks about and each one has lived an epic life, but there is one famous hero that has been immortalized throughout history. Hercules is the son of Zeus and a mortal named Alcmene. Zeus impregnated her while her husband was away and this is where his story began. Zeus' wife, Hera, found out about the affair and was outrageous about his careless actions. She tried to prevent Hercules' birth; however, when that didn't work she sent snakes to kill the baby. Hercules was too mighty for the snakes and strangled them before they could even hurt him. As stated in this source, "Hera remained angry. How could she get even? Hera knew that she would lose in a fight, and that she wasn't powerful enough to prevent Zeus from having his way. Hera decided to pay Zeus back for his infidelity by making the rest of Hercules' life as miserable as she could" (Crane WEB). Hercules grew up to be a great young warrior and was all around. With this god-like strength, also came an uncontrollable temper that made him react at times without thinking, but later made him realize the wrongdoings of his violence. He later then married a woman named Megara and had two beautiful children. But one day, Hera instilled a fit of rage into Hercules and made him slaughter his family with his very own hands. He was shocked by his actions and asked Apollo for assistance since he was drowning in guilt. Apollo later then gave him specific tasks to help Hercules redeem himself for the bloodshed he caused. The hero was sent to Eurystheus, and under his strict hand, he was to accomplish twelve labors over the next twelve years.

One day Hera, still wanting to wreak havoc upon Hercules’ life, influenced Hercules to kill his own wife and children. When Hercules came to his senses and realized what he had done, he was overcome with grief. He immediately went to the oracle at Delphi and asked how he could cleanse himself of his sins. The Oracle replied, “You must go to Mycenae and serve King Eurystheus for twelve years. Only by doing this will you ever be free of your pain and guilt” (Richardson and Baxter 10).

While completing tests the Hero learns qualities about themselves and learns the skills to complete the tasks at hand. Hercules finds hidden qualities deep inside himself that help him figure out how to beat the task at hand. He finds that there is more to himself than just strength and power. He is also cunning and intelligent. Hercules completes the tasks at hand in this stage and the tasks help shape his character. Hercules learns a little from each task which helps his character build. A key example of this is how Hercules handled cleaning the Augean stables. He decided it was not possible to clean the stables himself because the mares dung kept coming so he decided to wash out the feces with the rivers Alpheus and Peneus. Hercules finds his great character flaw in the 5th labor. This flaw is his wild temper. Augeas was furious that Hercules completed the task and he had to give one-tenth of his cattle to Hercules. Augeas decided to dishonor their previous agreement so Hercules killed him and stole all the cattle for himself. This was an action of rage not logic and hurt his chances of getting credit for the task. He learned from this because his cousin, King Eurystheus, made Hercules do another task because he did not manually remove the waste from the stables and he killed Augeas. Hercules discovered his character traits and flaws in the initiation phase which prepared him for the return phase of a Hero's

In majority of Greek myths, characters often have no remorse or guilt after committing crimes. An example would be Daedalus, who pushed his nephew off a cliff over jealousy and felt wronged when others accused him of the heinous crime. On the other hand, Hercules feels the need to thoroughly punish and redeem himself after minor accidents. This quality is proved through this quote from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, “He went willingly ready to do anything that could make him clean again” (231). After Hera made him mindlessly kill his family, the Oracle consulted him and said his cousin, Eurystheus, the King of Mycenae, would be able to thoroughly “purge” him. This resulted in the twelve labors that were supposed to “clean” him, by being near impossible and highly dangerous. There is no doubt that Hercules is the only person who would be able to accomplish this feat. His guilt and need to make amends show that Hercules stayed true to himself and did not let

When he realized he killed his family, Hercules found Apollo and asked what he could do to be healed of his guilt and become immortal. Apollo appointed him twelve nearly impossible missions to complete for the Mycenaen king Eurystheus. Once he completed all of the labors he would be healed (History.com Staff). The labors assigned to Hercules were kill the Nemean Lion, destroy the Lernean Hydra, capture the Cerynean Hind, capture the wild boar of Erymanthus, clean the Augean stables in a single day, drive away the Stymphalian birds, capture the Cretan bull, capture the man-eating horses of Diomedes, bring back the girdle of Hippolyta, capture the cattle of Geryon, bring back the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, and capture Cerberus. The gods forgave Hercules and he was ridded of his guilt (Sturdevant).

One thing the greeks thought was that in order to be a hero, you needed to suffer. Hercules ties right into this. Each labor he had caused a great amount of Physical pain, but he got through it. The most pain he went through was mentally. For example through each labor and through the rest of his life he had to deal with killing his own family.

First, all of the pain and suffering Hercules went through should consider him a greek hero. His stepmother, Hera, hated him from the very beginning but who can blame her, Hercules was the son of Zeus and another woman who wasn’t Hera. Knowing that Hera was determined for revenge, she tried killing him multiple times or destroying some of the things he loved.

Along with giving purpose, the myth of Hercules gave the Greeks a sense of self identity. Hercules went on a journey and grew mentally and physically in the process. It shows that by obeying and trusting the gods leads to happiness and the reverse as contrast. Hercules had to prove himself a hero and a son of Zeus just like the Greeks had to prove themselves a citizen and a part of their

The audience sees him in the beginning of the movie as a mercenary, taking jobs for money instead of glory. Come to find out that he believes he murdered his family and does not want to go finish his final labor, going after Cerberus (Ratner 2014). American pop culture takes away the desire of glory from the heroes portrayed on screen. Hercules should be doing whatever he can to defeat Cerberus and finish his labors to become immortal in the eyes of the people. Brett Ratner’s Hercules does not have this motivation, which takes away a huge aspect of Greek epic

This then made Hercules unwillingly kill his wife and children. After the murder of his own family, he came to his senses. Realizing what he had done, Hercules sought punishment for his egregious actions. His immediate response was to kill himself, but before he could do so Theseus stepped in. He stretched out

There are many greek gods and goddess and there are many stories about them. This is how the story of Hercules happened. Hercules was the son of Zeus and the son of Alcmene. Hercules was hated by Zeus's wife Hera, because of a mistake Zeus did during their relationship. This made Hercules have one of the hardest lives ever. Hercules was born as a mortal, but he was very strong and fearless. As Hercules grew up he did somethings that he’ll regret for the rest of his life. Hercules was one of the Strongest gods/goddess, he made some bad choices in his life.

He was also known for being stupid and prideful which sometimes outshined his strengths. Hercules was very playful and easygoing especially when entertaining children. Being Born a demi-god with incredible strength and stamina, even as a child he was not normal, when Hera sent two snakes to kill Hercules as a baby, he easily strangled them with his hands. Hercules faced many difficulties in his lifetime due to incurring Hera’s wrath, most of the other Olympian gods favoured him. As he help them in their battle against the Giants, but he was particularly favoured by

Hercules was favored by the gods from few quest and even a labor. For the sixth labor the goddess Athena helped Hercules by scaring off the Stymphalian bird he had to do this because the birds were causing a plague with their numbers. Hercules shot arrows at the birds when Athena scared them. Hercules had many terrible experiences with love because of Hera. ”He was helped by Athena to drive them out of their converts. ”(Hamilton 172) Hercules was considered the greatest hero of gods because he had the most strength out of all and great emotion. When he was a baby Hera sent two snakes to kill him but Hercules held them both up and killed them. Even though he is called the greatest this didn't mean he was necessarily good most of the times when he did bad things it was hera controlling his mind. He killed his wife and three children when he was being controlled. “When Megara had borne three sons he went mad.” Later he killed his wife and children.