Helen of Troy

When Aeneas sees Helen, he is driven into a state of fervent anger because he believes she caused the downfall of his homeland. When Aeneas first finds Helen, she is seeking refuge at the altar of Vesta (2.567), goddess of home and family. By seeking refuge at the altar of a goddess, Helen appears more vulnerable which serves to highlight the vengeful action Aeneas contemplates. Helen’s actions parallel those of Cassandra who sought refuge at the altar of Minerva during the fall of Troy. Like Helen, Cassandra was seeking refuge from the horrors of the war only to be assaulted by Ajax. While Aeneas never follows through on his desire to attack Helen in her place of refuge, the parallel serves to emphasizes how brutal Aeneas’ murder of Helen would be if he committed it at an altar. Killing someone seeking refuge at an altar would be a dishonorable act that would offend the gods, which is something that would be out of character for Aeneas if he was

The great talents that Achilles’ possesses cause him to become much admired and well known by both the Greeks and the Trojans. He begins to believe all the good things people are say and becomes an arrogant, child-like, selfish person which all mark Achilles’ hubris part of his behavior cycle. Achilles shows his arrogance when he gets angry with Agamemnon for him wanting take his prize of honor, which Achilles worked very hard to get. Because of this, Achilles begins to lose his capability to think straight and weigh all the factors in situations, and withdraws himself from the battle. Later on after Achilles overcomes the death of his best friend and regains back his courage and pride, Achilles kills Hector and thinks he is invincible for doing the great deed he did. Achilles fought Hector for honor over all else and performed the death of Hector almost as a duty and feels proud of himself for doing so. Before he kills Hector, Achilles declares, “I will go forth to slay Hector, who killed the man the I loved… Until then, may I win great fame and glory, and may every Trojan realize that the greatest of the Greeks no longer remains apart from battle”(145).

In book three of Iliad, “illustrious king” (9.126) and his Achaean armies fight the Trojans to stop wife stealing but despites that he still dishonors and takes Achilles prize, Breseis. Agamemnon in the Iliad can be seen as the mortal Aphrodite. In book three of Iliad, Helen disobeyed Aphrodite and she responds with rage and so does “lord of men” (9.112) in book one. Agamemnon feels that Achilles disobeyed him, so he answers with wrath just to show “how much greater [he] [is] than [him]…. for hoping to rival [him] strength for strength” (1.219-221). His statement makes Achilles furious with rage. “Why, why in the world if not for Helen with her loose and lustrous hair? Are they the only men alive who love their wives, those sons of Atreus? Never!” (9.411-414). Achilles expresses his feeling on how contradicting the whole Trojan war is and that is he going to involve himself, it will be for Bresies only. Bresies is who he loves not

Angry and calling Agamemnon a hypocrite, he states, “I hate it like I hate hell / the man who says one thing and think another” (168). Strategically beginning his soliloquy with a hostile accusation sets the tone for the rest of the speech. This tone and structure is harsh, hyperbolic, and jumps between the two arguments from which he bases his response: “He cheated me, wronged me. Never again” (170), Achilles declares, focusing on the loss of honor and placing blame on Agamemnon. Just 29 lines after, however, Achilles switches his focus to the other reason for leaving. “Nothing is worth my life, not all the riches / they say Troy held before the Greeks came…” (171). This quick shift of focus is similar to a rant going back and forth between arguments. His mind is not balancing on one thought, but rather driven by emotions and rhetorical questions. For example, he brings up, “why do the Greeks have to fight the Trojans?” “Why did Agamemnon lead the army to Troy if not for the sake of fair-haired Helen?” “And now he thinks he’s going to win me back?” (169). This tone and these rhetorical questions serve to exaggerate and humanize the argument. Achilles can only deal with so much—he is only human, after all, and must be treated like one. He is not Agamemnon’s war puppet. The meaning and purpose for Achilles’ rant is not muddled in the harsh and edgy speech; it is simply shown in various ways. He will not fight for Agamemnon and is making it

When the men of Agamemnon come to take Briseis, Achilles gives her up without a fight, despite how heavy his heart is at the thought of losing her. Once she is gone, Achilles withdraws from his companions and sobs, praying to his mother to understand why he is treated the way he is, why he isn’t treated with respect. His mother, hearing his laments, comes to console him, telling him that she will visit Zeus and try to sway him towards helping the Trojans and destroying the Achaeans, to make them pay for disrespecting the son of Thetis.

Achilles is also angry at having to fight another man's battle. The Trojan War is being fought because Paris stole Helen, Agamemnon's sister-in-law. In his argument with Agamemnon, Achilles points out "It wasn't Trojan spearmen who brought me here to fight. The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least" (107). Achilles' rage heightens in the argument and he declares "No, you colossal, shameless--we all followed you, to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans---Menelaus and you, you dog-face!" (108). Achilles is also angry because even though he and many other soldiers are there risking their lives for Agamemnon and Menelaus, Agamemnon is sly enough to avoid personal injury. Achilles says to Agamemnon, "Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle or risk an ambush packed with Achaea's picked men--you lack the courage, you can see death

First, the gods influence on his fate becomes evident when Athena persuades Achilles to keep Agamemnon alive and spare Agamemnon from his rage. Due to Achilles holding onto this rage towards Agamemnon, a series of events transpire that push him closer and closer to making rash decisions that eventuate into his fate at the end of The Iliad. Right as Achilles closes in to kill Agamemnon, Athena appears to Achilles and says, “ you shall have a

While frantically celebrating her appalling marriage to King Agamemnon, giving praise to Hymen, the god of marriage, she says, “O Mother, crown my triumph with a wreath” (I, i, 361). Here she does not show signs of terrible heartache about being sent to a bridal bed that will ruin her life’s work and sacrifice her virginity. Until she begins to tell her mother how she will try to take revenge for her family does she show pain by saying, “I shall kill [Agamemnon] mother, lay his house as low as he laid ours, make him pay for all he made my father suffer, brothers . . .”(I, i, 367-369). Raving, she prophecies, “If Apollo lives, my marriage will be bloodier than Helen’s,” and in time we see that she is right with the fall of Greece (I, i, 364-365). She also makes an interesting point on the defeat of Troy. She explains that the Greeks are just there to fight and conquer, and that their families are not there to soften their hearts. The Trojans fight as a family for their people. The Trojans have lost, but they died with great honor trying to save and protect their country and kinsmen. Cassandra refers to those soldiers, her family, who fought with a final divination, “Brothers, in Troy’s earth laid, my father, a little time and I am with you. You dead, I shall come to you a victor. Those ruined by my hand who ruined us” (I, i, 469-472). Even though she is portrayed as mad, the evidence of her wisdom, whether it be given to her by the god she has devoted her life, or just insane predictions, shows us that women could be intelligent and know of things to come just as men. Giving us our second example of feminism, Cassandra shows her intellect equivalent to

While they may be great warriors, the two men often let their stubbornness and pride take rein of their emotions. When King Agamemnon snatches Briseis, a woman Achilles had captured from the town of Lyrnessus, Achilles swears that he will never again fight under Agamemnon nor “do

His brother Hector and he were on a peace mission in Sparta on behalf of Troy visiting the king, Menelaus, when Paris ran off with Menelaus’ wife, Helen. This action divides the Gods who constantly meddle with the mortal’s lives. Naturally, Aphrodite is on the Trojans’ side, as was her lover and God of War, Ares, and Apollo. Although Zeus, King of Gods, tried to be neutral, he was pro-Trojan. Hera, Queen of Gods, and Athena help the Greeks because they were mad that Paris chose Aphrodite. Poseidon, God of the Sea and Zeus’ brother, also sided with the Greeks whenever Zeus was not looking. An example of this constant intrusiveness of the Gods in the Iliad was when King “Menelaus hurls his spear, lightly wounding Paris. Paris’ helmet strap becomes caught at his chin and Menelaus has nearly dragged him away before Aphrodite intervenes, breaking the strap. She then wraps Paris in a mist, sets him in his own perfumed bedchamber, and hurries to catch Helen” (Bloom 13). Of course, in the movie version, when Paris becomes wounded he crawls to Hector’s ankles. King Menelaus becomes angered and says Paris is not worthy of royalty nor his wife Helen. Hector is then forced to defend his little brother and kills Menelaus. The elimination of the Gods from Troy, although unsatisfactory, does simplify the movie compared to the complicated plot of the Iliad. Wolfgang Petersen may have had motivation to remove the Gods because it

Hecuba, queen of Troy, is never mentioned nor shown in Troy, and neither is the daughter of the royal family, Cassandra. These two women also do not play vital roles in the book, however their presence is fairly significant. To make up for their absence, the movie Troy focuses more on the three female royalties actually portrayed: Briseis, as already mentioned, Andromache, wife of Hector, and Helen, the cause of the Trojan War. Andromache's character in the movie parallels her character in the book. She is dedicated to her husband and fears for his safety when he goes out into battle. And when she realizes that he has died, "the world [goes] black as night before her eyes, she faint[s], falling backward, gasping away her life breath." (Homer, XXII. 547-549) Similarly, in the movie, Andromache is devastated when Hector dies. Diane Kruger's rendition of Helen in Troy is a bit unlike Homer's Helen. In the movie, Helen is consistently loving and accepting, and when Paris cowers from his duel with Menelaus, she remains supportive of him, claiming that he cowers for the sake of love. In the book, Helen is not so one-dimensional and lashes out at him when

Paris’s biggest villainous act was his “abduction” of Helen and his refusal to return her back to her husband afterwards. Paris accepted Aphrodite’s offer to win over Helen over the other goddesses who had more useful offers. Even though Paris himself was married and so was Helen to king Menelaus he still “chose Aphrodite and accepted her bribe

Contrastingly, the gods are purely mentioned in the film with the exception of the appearance of Thetis to Achilles. Gods are only prayed and sacrificed to, but they do not make an appearance in Troy. The gods have a major role in the Iliad however; they are depicted as having a grand amount of control over what happens. For instance, the gods had control over the battle between Paris and Menelaos. Paris escapes with the help of the goddess Aphrodite, who wraps him in a thick mist and carries him back home: “But Aphrodite caught up Paris / easily, since she was divine, and wrapped him in a thick mist / and set him down again in his own perfumed bedchamber.” (3. 380-2). However in the film, Hektor ends up killing Menelaos. As readers of the Iliad, it is known that Menelaos is supposed to survive. As the gods do not appear in the film, viewers do not have the opportunity to know what the gods are thinking or planning. Only readers of the Iliad are able to witness a conversation held between the gods. The film therefore provides no foretelling of what will happen in the future, while the epic does. There is also no sign of communication between the gods and humans in the film. While in the Iliad, gods tend to appears in dreams or even disguised as another person. Nevertheless, gods and anything close to mystical are not displayed

Achilles arrived at a shack on the beach to find Briseis, cousin of Hector and Paris. He found out that Briseis was Royalty, not just entertainment for him. Agamemnon did not see that the victory of the Trojan beach was earned by Achilles and his men. Briseis shouted at Achilles that his only talent was killing and that was his curse. That silenced Achilles. Achilles explained, “Before my time is done, I'll look down on your corpse and smile.” He showed no mercy for Agamemnon, only mercy for Briseis. Achilles wanted no harm for Briseis and was the only soldier that would say that. No one else saw Briseis as he did. No one else understood her like he did. Achilles had great respect for her.

The gods called upon Paris to award the prize of beauty. Hera promised him power and riches if he decided in her favor. Athena offered him wisdom and glory in war. Then Aphrodite said she would give him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris gave Aphrodite the apple, and Hera and Athena became bitter enemies of the Trojans.