The Mythology Of The Gods

Godly colossal Greek epic, “The Iliad” constituted by the poet named, Homer, articulate the chronicle of the Brobdingnagian Trojan War. It is swarming with the interventions of the gods enchanting their coveted mortals (humans) and altering the heterogeneous scenes of the Trojan War. In this poem, gods have an assortment of relationships with humans which include love, fornication, and mother or father relationships. Gods interact with mortals in human shapes and stimulate them. Also, gods cognize that every human is eventually destined to die and they anticipate humans to pray to them for every obstacle humans encounter. However, for humans gods are omnipotent, authoritative, dominant, and immortals, who they supplicate to if they have

Throughout The Iliad, Homer offers us a glimpse into the lifestyles of the ancient Greeks and their beliefs. They are a very spiritual and in many ways superstitious people. The main thing to note throughout The Iliad is the interaction between the gods and the humans. Any way one looks at the situation, they can immediately see that humans are mere pawns to the gods in their game of chess. The success and failures of the humans depends on what god would be helping which group and at what particular time. This essay will explain the three main reasons the gods in The Iliad intervened with humans: Firstly, gods who act on their own personal motives, secondly, gods who act as favors to other gods, and finally gods who act as favors to

If there’s one thing one can count on when it comes to Greek gods, it’s that they’re critically flawed. Anyone reading Homer’s The Iliad can see the Greek gods act just like humans, constantly bickering, deceiving and throwing fits. The only people who can’t see through this facade of glorious immortality are the Greeks themselves. Throughout Homer’s entire epic, the gods continuously help the mortals based upon their own motives, and yet, the humans still worship them, ask them for help and forgiveness and blessings. Any reader would throw up their hands, disgusted that the humans glorify these beings that possess all the character flaws that mortals do. Homer is very successful in portraying humanity throughout his text, both through the perspective of the gods, and the perspective of the humans. While readers are allowed insight to both worlds, the characters themselves only see one dimension, resulting in the unequal nature of the humans constantly working to please the gods, sometimes to no avail. The Iliad exposes the fatal character flaws of the gods to readers, while also maintaining the mortal Greek perspective that gods are perfect beings, looking out for the greater good of mankind.

The intervention of gods provides the reader a way to stand out of the battlefield and see the whole world as the duality between gods and human. This approach of decoding the Iliad transforms readers' attitudes toward the individuals on the battlefield. Before talking about the transformation, it should be considered that who is the reader for the readers' own value system is a strong factor in valuing the characters in the book. First of all, the fact that readers are human-being may not subject to any doubt. Thus, in the duality of gods and human, readers will have a tendency to support humans as a man will tend to support oneself. Thus, when the gods so harm to humans as a whole, it easily brought up the readers' compassion towards the

The Iliad is a book full of poems that talk about the history of Trojans and Greeks. Within the Iliad, there is a strong urge to show a world in which was are tremendous and the gods have direct hand in human events and these deities influence fate. The two leading gods, Achillies and Aeneas, the reader can see the ways in which these two cultural problems entwine and try to create an image of the ancient world which is at once barbarously real in terms of the depiction of not just the glory, but also the horrors of war which are filled with supernatural and mystical figures called the gods.

    Through the personification of the forces or in other words gods, Homer’s characters helped themselves feel more connected with both mortal and immortal worlds. Humans straddled two worlds, that of the animals and that of the gods. Homer’s humans came from the world of the animals a world of a non-questioning existence, and these humans were striving to reach the world of the gods in which lay the understanding of their inconceivable existence. By personifying the governing forces of both animals and humans, Homer’s characters were creating a link to both animals and gods, for the "...[gods’] power is over all"(140) . The gods helped the characters in The Odyssey feel comfortable with their position in between two worlds.

Homer’s The Illiad, in essence, is a continuation of our class’ previous reading (i.e. Hesiod’s Theogony). Theogony presents readers with the chain of events that lead up to the birth of gods and the ascending of Zeus to the throne. We have already observed their human-like nature; they are arguably just humans with more power and strengths. Throughout The Illiad, we can also see their increase involvement with human activities, from Apollo spreading the plague to Zeus sending a dream to Agamemnon. Yet the most interesting and thought-provoking is when Aphrodite comes down to aid Paris when he was beaten by Menelaus. “…enraged with brazen spear/ mad for the kill but Aphrodite snatched Paris away,/ easy work for a god, wrapped him in swirls

In the Iliad, the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon causes unavoidable conflicts between the gods due to the sides they chose to take during the Trojan War. Humans, through burnt offerings and prayers, and even other gods, like Thetis when she requests assistance from Zeus (cite and explain), appeal to the gods for help and interference. Although the gods can and have interfered with human actions such as the scene with Athena and Achilles (cite), they do not necessarily prevent humans from having free will. Rather, they go along with it, only acting in accordance to those who have appealed to them. Therefore, though sometimes the gods may come off as capricious, the Homeric take on the Greek gods is that they only interfere on behalf of those they favor or owe favors to.

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

With these events, Homer tries to maintain that dealing with the divine power with the limited abilities of mortals will only result in harm to humans. Therefore, he points the danger of the involvement of the anger of gods. Initially human actions initiated events in the Iliad.

To a certain extent, the role of the gods in Homer's Iliad can be summed up by the following remark by a character in an entirely different literary work, Gloucester from Shakespeare's King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / they kill us for their sport."

In Greek Mythology, perhaps one of the most rudimental yet one of the most important elements are the Greek Gods and Goddesses. The ancient Greeks created the stories about the lives and journeys of the Greek Gods, known as myths, simply as an endeavor to elucidate nature and all phenomena which were difficult to explain using modern science and logic. These myths about the Gods were spread around the world by explorers and storytellers, and later merged with Greek religion. To this day, numerous myths survived through many writings and through much art. Each of these myths is very unique, and moreover, tells us much about the Greek Gods. The Greek myths in particular convey to us that Greek Gods and Goddesses looked and acted like humans,

(1) Zeus, also known as Jupiter. Brother to Poseidon and Hades. He is the supreme leader of the Gods and he is the Lord of the Sky, the Rain-God, and the cloud gatherer, who wielded the incredible Thunderbolt. His power alone was greater than that of all the divinities combined. He once told his family “I am mightiest of all. Make trial that you may know. Fasten a rope of gold to heaven and lay hold, every God, and Goddess. You could not drag down Zeus. But if I wished to drag you down, then I would. The rope I would bind to a pinnacle of Olympus and all would hang in the air, yes, the very earth and the sea too.”

Cartoons often depict a character with a subconscious angel and devil on each shoulder hyping up the personality trait the character should act on. These subconscious beings influence the characters to act on their impulse thoughts and reveal their true character. In the Iliad, the gods acted as these subconscious beings and were portrayed with humanistic qualities. They intervened or refused to intervene based on their emotional attachments and were the final push of the humans’ actions throughout the poem. The gods and humans’ similar qualities allowed the humans to exercise free will instead of being puppets to the gods. The comparative personalities allowed Homer to use the gods and divinity to explain certain characters behaviors.

A lot of these themes can be related to present day events and values. The Article makes connections with the book relating to present day issues. Some of these issues, for example, have to do with fighting for freedom. The epic poem goes in depth with the characters’ values creating a viewpoint for the society in The Iliad. From the epic poem we can learn that some of their viewpoints are similar to ours. Such as fighting for family and the masculinity is still seen in today’s society, especially when it emphasises on women being the ones with the family and not being a warrior. From both the article and the epic poem we can tell that the masculinity is only glorified if you were involved with the wars. We can then infer that Homer gave the story an outline of glorifying war if you were involved. The intrusion of the gods supported Homer’s ideal theme of masculinity and the shortness of life itself, giving the story an overall moral of fighting till you die which can be compared to incidents in present day