The Iliad And The Mahabharata

Many books of literature, no matter what time period they were written or who the author is, have many similarities. The books The Iliad and Bhagavad Gita are great examples of this. These two books consist of many of the same themes and characteristics within the readings that cause them to relate to each other. On the other hand, they also have some characteristics that contradict themselves in different ways. In the book The Iliad the author Homer, explains a story revolving around a Greek hero named Achilles. Both stories have two main characters, Achilles and Arjuna, which really have many of the same characteristics within them. Both Achilles from The Iliad and Arjuna from Bhagavad Gita have many similar aspects about themselves and what's expected of them in their daily life. The main theme characteristics that I’m going to discuss in this essay is what duty each character plays in their culture or what role they are expected to take on. I’m also going to compare War between the two stories. Both readings have many similar views under these topics but also have some differences within them. In this essay, I will be explaining the characteristics that are similar in both stories along with the characteristics that contradict in the pieces.

The Iliad during the Trojan war is a very interesting story that could cause debate upon fellow readers. It brings up a lot of questions and thoughts about the gods and greeks of this time period, such as what is more important to them, justice or mercy? Also, it highlights the view that they have on war and whether it is tragic or glorious to them. During the Iliad, justice and mercy both play very important roles throughout the multiple books and are seen by different characters during the war. Also, it shows what the gods are like and how they view themselves and humans.

The Iliad takes place in a city, Troy, which is in modern-day Turkey. Achilles a great warrior of Greek mythology participated in the Trojan War, on which Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad is based. Achilles was the son of Thetis and Peleus, king of the

Around the twelfth to thirteenth century B.C. God intervention caused one of the bloodiest wars in history, the Trojan War. The main characters in this war and the story that comes with it (The Iliad) are Achilles the best fighter on the Greek side and Hector the Trojans best warrior. Hector and Achilles were heroes in the story but they were different types of heroes. Achilles is known as the epic hero because he had supernatural help and characteristics but Hector was the modern hero the regular human hero because he was just human and had no supernatural power or help.

Greek mythology played a large role in Greek artistic styles and functions. In the case of this study, the mythological god Apollo is the subject of the artistic works of the votive known as the “Mantiklos Apollo” and the statue of “Apollo” that was found in Pireaus. These figures show a natural progression in style and technique. They are important because they represent the sacred beliefs and superstitions of their respective cultures and time periods.

The Iliad was an epic poem written in the 8th century BCE by the Greek poet Homer. The Iliad is considered to be the earliest work in Western literature, and is one of the most well-known and respected stories ever written. The Iliad covers the events of the last couple weeks of the ten years that the Trojan War took place. The Iliad is an epic that has many underline themes such as love, war, hate and forgiveness. The poem greatly covers Achilles roll in the Trojan War and how the gods and goddess were constantly intervening with the outcome of the war. The Iliad also vastly covers Achilles and Hectors relationship thought the last weeks of the Trojan War.

Amidst themes of suffering, war, violence, and sin, the characters of both the Iliad and the book of Genesis strive to live and define their lives as their own. The women in particular best exemplify this struggle as they contend not only with the circumstances to which they are born into, but must also grapple will the role they play in their society and how their actions influence the greater fate of their people. Within the Iliad, Andromache’s role as a woman and wife to a warrior during war contributes to her actions unintentionally furthering the moira of her husband and ultimately the fall of Troy. On the other hand, Rebekah drives the plot of Genesis by using her intelligence to manipulate events to adhere to their version of fate:

Describe how both authors use similar elements in their short story. What else could you discuss about the similarities you seen between the two texts? In addition, what differences could you argue (keeping in context to the literary elements)?

The Trojan War was commenced around 3000 BCE marking most memorable period in Greek Mythology. These events were presented in Homer’s lliad through poetry. The war began during the Bronze Age with Greeks and the defenders of the city of Troy fighting in Anatolia. Troy, today known as modern Turkey was in Anatolia i.e. at the eastern Shores of Aegean Sea. The city of Troy was colonized by 5000-10000 Trojans and was attacked many times by 5000 Mycenaeans who had crossed the Aegean Sea in hundred ships. Around 1200 BCE the city was destroyed by Mycenaean Greeks. The war was sophisticated to higher level by tactics and Magnificent Armors. Mycenaean Greece came under attack by both land and sea around 1200 BCE. (Dutton Marchand Harkness 27)

One significant difference between the Iliad and Troy is the timespan. The Iliad is not a story of a Trojan war, but a story of a hero’s wrath. The time span it covers is only a few weeks in the tenth year of the siege of Troy. Homer chooses to focus on events that occurred during a quarrel of King Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and brother of Menelaus, and Achilles, the most powerful warrior of the Achaean army. Homer doesn’t go into detail about other events and battles, as the story of the Trojan War was well-known to the Greek society because it has been told and retold by bards for numerous times and the general plot was still fresh in the minds of the Greeks. For his poem to stand out, Homer had to be original, so he didn't tell his audience about the war as a whole, but rather spotlighted the wrath of an individual hero, Achilles. Troy,

The Iliad is a poem of war. The entire narrative takes place at or near a battlefield with men who had been fighting a seemingly never ending war for over nine years, and portrays many many battles great and small. At the

The Iliad: Book VI is about the continued war for Troy but Homer focuses a lot of the book on Hector, Prince of Troy. The Achaeans were overwhelming the Trojans so they were forced back into their city. The Trojans were weakened so the Achaeans took full advantage and slaughtered as many as they could. However, the Trojans anticipated this weakness and Hector asked his mother to pray to Athena for the army. Meanwhile Paris, Hector’s brother, had withdrawn from battle because of the grief he caused. But his soon to be wife Helen and Hector convince him to return to battle. Just before they head into battle Hector pays a visit to his wife and child to say goodbye for maybe the last time. His wife is convinced that he is near his death and mourns. Hector then meets Paris on the way to the city gate and they prepare to fight.

Their reason for fighting is very similar. In the Iliad, Achilles fights Hector after Hector murdered Achilles’s best friend, Patroclus. In the Ramayana, Rama fights against the enemy, Ravana, because Ravana kidnaps Rama’s wife, Sita. Both characters defeat the enemy because their loved ones were being harmed. However, the differences are that the heroes have a different sequence of events that led to the following test where they fight their enemy. For example, in the Ramayana, Sita got kidnapped as an indirect result of Rama obeys his father's wishes going into the wood for fourteen years as a hermit. On the other hand, in the Illiad, Patroclus is killed; it directly results in Achilles' actions. Patroclus might not have been killed if Achilles had agreed to accept Agamemnon's decision to take the girl, Briseis away just like Rama took his father's promise. Achilles’s anger is a result of this happening but Patroclus’s death excessed his previous anger to

Virgil was Rome’s unwilling epic poet, he gave the Roman people a cohesive narrative that tied them to the past and propelled them towards the future. This narrative, The Aeneid, had its basis in local lore as well as ties to the older Greek epics of Homer. The Aeneid almost functions as an extension of The Iliad and Odyssey, with its protagonist, Aeneas, being a minor figure in the earlier poems, and the work itself academically divided into “Odyssean” and “Iliadic” parts. In this relationship Virgil owes a creative debt to Homer, and there is a resemblance that can be seen with striking clarity when the experiences of Homers’ Odysseus and Virgil’s Aeneas are examined side by side. Odysseus and Aeneas are both honour bound to reach the destinations of their respective journeys, Odysseus to rule Ithaca and Aeneas to found Rome, and while ones journey often mirrors the others, there are significant differences between the two. The major differences that can be observed lie in their characters and forms of heroism and these variations shape the course of their narratives, yet the similarities of their internal journeys and ultimate fates remain intact.

Secondly, both epics start in media res. The Odyssey starts ten years after the Trojan War and the Illiad starts nine years after the start of the war.