Similes In Iliad

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus transitions into manhood after enduring a grueling journey back to Ithaka. One observes his valor and courageousness being put to the test and sees how he gains a new understanding of what it means to be a man after tragically losing what he values most. To illustrate this, Homer offers the following simile: “[…] as when a man, who well understands the lyre and singing, easily, holding it on either side, pulls the strongly twisted cord of sheep’s gut, so as to slip it over a new peg, so without any strain, Odysseus strung the great bow,” (21.406-9). Homer contradicts the graceful precision of the lyre with the barbaric twisting of the cord of a sheep’s gut in order to allude to Odysseus’s triumph over the

The Iliad and The Odyssey are tales written by Homer centered on the drama of the Trojan War. First poem deals with the time during the end of the war, while the latter, which occurs roughly ten years later, explains the disastrous journey of Odysseus fighting his way back home. The character of women in the Odyssey is to exhibit the many and diverse roles that women play in the lives of men. These functions vary from characters such as the goddess ' that help them to the nymphs who trick them. Women in the Iliad exhibit their significance in the lives of the ancient Greeks because they are so prominent in a world so dominated with military relations.

Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey” reveals many aspects of ancient Greek life and culture through character and plot. Through each of the tales circling the life of Odysseus and the Greek people, Homer depicts the history, legends, values, and merits of the ancient Greeks. Greek culture is known to be one of the most flavored and thorough in history, and each facet of it—from religion to ideology to mentalities and beliefs.

Homeric or epic similes can be found all throughout The Odyssey written by Homer. A simile is the comparison of two unlike objects using like or as. Homer’s similes are considered to be “epic” because of how elaborate they are to help the audience “feel” and picture a scene. One of the most glorified scenes in The Odyssey, full of epic similes, is when Odysseus stabs the eye of Cyclops Polyphemus. As soon as Polyphemus fell asleep from the over-consumption of wine, Odysseus put his plan into motion to escape the Cyclops’ cave. Courage took over Odysseus and Homer writes:

In The Iliad by Homer women in the Ancient World period were seen as possessions and property of men and consequently they were inferior to men. The Iliad begins in the 10th year of the war and starts off with Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over their war prizes, Chryseis and Brieseis. Chryseis’s father, priest of Apollo, asked Menelaus for his daughter back or he would pray to Apollo to send a plague to the Greek camp. Menelaus finally gives Chryseis back because

Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, first started as an oral storytelling tradition dating from about 1100 BC, after the Trojan war.

I will argue that we may view the woman as representative of Odysseus’ grief in his moment of pity and pain, the simile in its entirety may be regarded as analogous to a potential future for his own oikos. Should he fail to return home or succeed to return only to deceit and demise, Odysseus will initiate the splintering of his home into the rabid hands of the suitors. The simile shifts from referring solely to Odysseus to encompass the possible fate of his entire household. This promotes the idea that this hero reaps what he sows for, as the perpetrator of like monstrosity, he faces the tragedy of a future akin to that of his own surviving victims.

     Many people regard Homer’s epics as war stories—stories about men; those people often overlook the important roles that women play in the Odyssey. While there are not many female characters in the Odyssey, the few that there are, play pivotal roles in the story and one can gain a lot of insight by analyzing how those women are portrayed. Homer portrays the females in contradictory ways: the characters of Athena and Eurykleia are given strong, admirable roles while Melantho, the Sirens and Circe are depicted in a much more negative way. Penelope—the central female character—is given both negative and positive attributes.

Homer uses stylistic and narrative features to construct interesting and diverse female characters in his epic poem ‘The Odyssey’. Characters such as Penelope, Athene, Circe and Calypso are developed into varied and stimulating characters for Homer’s universal audience through the use of various literary techniques.

The Iliad by Homer and the Women of Troy by Euripides are both Greek works of literature that look at the Trojan War from different perspectives. Book 6 of the Iliad illustrates that the ultimate glory is to fight for the city with no regard to the impact on the family. The Women of Troy focuses on the negatives that war causes, especially towards the soldier’s wives and children. Whereas the Iliad focuses on the battle itself and centers on the warriors, the Women of Troy focuses on the wrath the war brings upon the families left behind. The central theme in both the works is the Trojan War and they both offer perspectives of the duty of a person, the role of predetermined fate, and the role of women.

The role of women in Greek literature has demoralized them and showing them in a maligned light. The women are portrayed as frail, cruel, insensitive, or as seductresses. These characteristics have been integrated into today’s society and [have] built the standards and defined the moral outlook of women. However, in Greek mythology, powerful and strong women are not as well celebrated, such as Athena. Homer’s The Odyssey construes the positive and negative role of women through the epic poem. The women in the poem are depicted through the contrasting actions of Penelope and the maids, in addition with the opposite personalities between the goddess Athena and the nymph Calypso.

With these wrathful words of Achilles to his commander Agamemnon, so begins the sequence of events in The Iliad that ultimately pits Achilles the runner against Hector, breaker of horses. Although these men were already enemies, Achilles being an Achaean and Hector being a Trojan, it is truly Achilles’ rage that makes the rivalry personal. These two men, from opposite sides of the

An Examination of Similes in the Iliad - and how Homer's Use of Them Affected the

Another similarity between these Iliad and Aeneid is that one single woman creates conflict in both of the stories. In the Aeneid Turnus goes to war with Aeneas because he takes his bride Lavinia which starts the war between both nations. In the Iliad Paris stole “Helen away, he went to wide-ruling Agamemnon, his powerful brother, and asked him to raise an army to bring her back,” (Rosenberg 126). In both of these two myths the start of the war was because of a woman. This shows that in both of their culture they see women almost like objects. It also shows in their cultures beautiful and superior women were often sometimes the root cause for warfare. This displays one of the major themes of gender roles revealing how both the Roman and Greek cultures found women to be seen as property for men and shows how weak women are because they don't have the ability to protect themselves from potential dangers.

Homeric epics (mainly the Iliad and the Odyssey) have been significant for historical reasons— for what they have recorded to the ancient Greece tradition. The Iliad and the Odyssey were probably composed between 750 BC and 700 BC. The events in the epics should take place during the Mycenaean period (1600– 1100 BC).