Hera In The Iliad

Agency is a term describing one's ability to reason and to act freely. Back in the time of the Trojan War, women were not considered to possess full agency as Aristotle once illustrated in his Politics “The deliberative part of the soul is entirely missing from a slave, a woman has it but it lacks authority.” In Book 3 of the Iliad, Homer illustrated the enticement of Aphrodite luring Helen to the bed of Paris and Helen’s corresponding resistance. From Helen’s dispute with Aphrodite, we can see that women in the Homeric world attempted to achieve agency through defying their fate of being materialized as mere sex partners, but eventually all the attempts were conquered under the mental compulsion from gods.

Moreover, the misogynistic Greek culture exemplified significant inferiority complexes towards the ties between women and nature. Women within Greek culture were significantly looked down upon. Their purpose was to serve as child bearers and even then that power is taken away from them in certain points of Greek mythology. For instance, when Zeus is trying to protect his son from Hera, he sows him into his leg and then essentially gives birth to him in four years’ time. In many cases it is shown how threatened the Greek men are by females; to the point that they either blame them for their misfortunes by portraying them as the mistake or fail to deliberate on the female goddesses, as it is in the case of Pandora and Athena. Then the

As goddess of marriage and family, Hera wanted to represent the ideal woman. Unfortunately for Hera, her husband, Zeus, had many secret affairs causing Hera to be jealous and vengeful, particularly aimed towards her husband, his lovers, and people that deceived her. There were many stories that clearly display Hera’s jealousy, but one of the most well known stories was the tale of Zeus and Leto resulting in the birth of two important gods. Zeus decided to pursue Leto, but when he realized that Hera was watching, he transformed himself and Leto in quails. Even though Zeus had taken measures to protect himself and Leto, Hera saw them together.

Especially after Io’s entrance and the recount of her story, Hera seems more like a jealous wife than the noble queen she is presented as in Hesiod’s work. Her attitude towards Io is blamed on Zeus, who has not only provoked Hera’s actions but is her husband and thus responsible for Hera, as it was customary in ancient Greece.

Hera was a goddess that was envied but also very cruel. She was very beautiful and powerful, but looks and power aren't everything. Hera would seek revenge after the

Hera would have been an excellent alternative guardian for Odysseus. Athena was Odysseus' protector during his time of suffering, but if Athena was not there, Hera could have easily stepped into her place. Hera's characteristics, point of view, family situations, and qualities would have made her an ideal replacement for Athena.

Throughout Western thought to 1600, women are portrayed as second-class citizens, their roles in society were inferior to those of the dominant groups in society. Women during this time filled traditional roles of caretaking, birthing and manual labor. They were tools used in society in the form of property or as a source for bearing children, preferably boys. Women were compared to other luxurious items such as gold, and horses and often praised for their beauty. Although many texts portray women in these subordinate roles, some were referred by name but often times not. Overall women weren’t given access to many positions or resources in society due to the way they were perceived by those dominant in society.

Sexism is a topic that is often discussed today since it still permeates throughout society, just as it did more than two thousand years ago. That discrimination often causes pain and suffering on the receiving side, in this case women. An example of the sexist undertones in this piece of literature comes from Creon, “You scheming source of every criminal act you have a woman’s wickedness; your daring shows masculine strength, ignoring what men say.” (Seneca 80 lines 266-268). This sentence illuminates several different facts about Greek culture and their treatment of women. First, those in power, namely Creon, who is king, believes that women are “wicked” and evil. Second, it implies that women are not supposed to ignore and protest men within the social structure, those that do object a man show that they are not womanly, they display qualities of a man, according to their culture. All of this culminates inside of Medea’s failed marriage with Jason. As a consequence of this sexism, it made it easier to simply break off the marriage and marry Creusa. Those supporting Jason could just present the claim that Medea is a crazy woman, and since they are male, perpetrating such actions is acceptable. Consequentially, breaking of her marriage with Jason is the main reason that Medea slowly spirals into suffering and

Hera Juno is a jealous and angry goddess while dealing with Zeus and his many mistresses. Even though Zeus and Hera are both married, Zeus falls in love with many other women. Her jealousy guides her to "punishing the many women Zeus falls in love [with]... [no matter] how innocent [the women are]" (Hamilton, Mythology,27). Hera's jealousy guides her to disempower women because of her husband , who is culpable, lies with them. Hera does not attempt to fix her marriage at all. Her anger gets the best of her even if the women "yielded only because he coerced or tricked them" (Hamilton,27). She does not care if Zeus,himself, tricks the women; She only sees it as their fault. Hera simply lets Zeus get away with whatever he wants.

Hera: Queen of all the gods and goddesses, she is the goddess of marriage and family. Her symbols are the Peacock and the Cow. Hera is sister to Hades, Poseidon, and also wife of Zeus. Zeus had an affair with a mortal and had a kid named Heracles. When Hera heard about it she got mad so she decided to punish Heracles for it and sent snakes to attack him in his crib.

The myth of how the war between the Greeks and the Trojans began, itself, shows women, in this case goddesses, in an unflattering light, fighting like vain beauty queens over which one is more beautiful. In fact, the very character of these three goddesses is at the least reprehensible and mirrors the conception of many ancient, male-driven societies of women being fickle, disloyal temptresses. Hera is the paranoid, jealous wife who viciously strikes out at her husband's lovers, Aphrodite is a kind of divine harlot, and Athena, although the most admirable of the group, nevertheless gives in to petty emotions and is an odd choice to be guardian of wisdom, since no women were allowed in the academies or thought of by men as being particularly wise. Thetis' intentions are the exception to the trivial designs of her immortal counterparts, for she is always the devoted mother of Achilles, trying to do what is best for her son. Athena may give aid to the Greek cause, but only because she was not picked by Paris as the most fair. The only mortal woman in the Iliad who seems to have any redeeming qualities, and to whom we are not introduced for any real amount of time, in contrast to Hecuba, is Andromache, who makes a brief, yet lasting appearance as Hector's wife. For the most part, however, women in the Iliad are placed decidedly in the background, at best shown as accessories to their male spouses.

Hera is, probably, the brightest example of how Greco-Roman mythology reflects the power relations between women and men: Greek and Roman myths depict Hera as a woman of the utmost anger, evil, revenge, and jealousy. Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound shows Hera as a woman full of negative emotions and the desire to destroy everything and everyone on her way to personal happiness. Aeschylus mentions the story of Hera, Zeus and Io. Zeus falls in love with Io but fearing Hera’s revenge, he turns Io into a cow and asks her to come to the meadow to make love with him: “but get thee gone to meadow deep / By Lerna’s marsh, where are thy father’s flocks And cattle-folds, that on the eye of Zeus / May fall the balm that shall assuage desire” (Aeschylus). In his poem, Aeschylus mentions Hera a few times, and every time her name is overfilled with negative connotations, turning Hera into a monster: “And Hera’s curse even as a runner stripped / Pursues thee ever on thine endless round” (Aeschylus). However, these

not free to leave. At no point in the poem is it even hinted that Helen

Medea accomplished that by giving birth to two children for Jason. As the play slowly unraveled, it plainly displayed that she was faithful towards her husband, but being an ideal Greek wife was not her factual nature. She was independent and her qualities made her different from the Corinth women. In the opening sequence, the nurse introduced Medea as a frightening woman when someone wronged her. “Her temperaments are dangerous and will not tolerate bad treatment. For she is fearsome. No one who joins in conflict with her will celebrate an easy victory”, the nurse presented (page 2, line). From this, the reader can envision how ordinary other Greek women were. How they didn’t have a mind of their own and were defenseless towards those shabby treatments from men. These women were submissive and didn’t have any control over their lives. However, the protagonist Medea did. She took matters in her own hands when her husband betrayed her.

Zeus was known for a number of things, but his love affairs was one of the numerous things he was famous for. Zeus was the king of all the gods, he was known for the god of the skies, weather, fate and laws. Out of all of his lovers he had over the years, his first was known as Aphrodite. She was the goddess of beauty and was followed by Zeus when she first emerged from the great sea, but she managed to escape him. It did not take much time for Zeus’ wife Hera to realize that their marriage was falling into the deep end. Zeus had a deep lust which then made Hera’s jealousy fester. (Summary 1).