Ancient expectations for women include always putting the responsibilities of being a mother above all else, as shown in Euripides’ Medea and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, as well as Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. Both Clytemnestra and Medea exhibit motherly love and tend to those responsibilities, but commit atrocious, unladylike acts, which jeopardize the sympathy felt for them by an audience. The respective playwrights of each story use their character’s motivations and how they align with their roles
To have a set of skills and qualities to become hero, bravery is genuinely one of the biggest traits one must have to be a hero. Heroic tales usually contains violence in the story. In most heroic novels, books, and poems that feature a main character with a hero’s complex, the source of their power is derived from their heroism undermines their ability to reason. In the books examined there is always a hero or heroine that is tasked with self-discovery, destroying evil, seeking vengeance on evil
establish their dominance. In The Iliad, Homer seems to have the view that women can be taken from their homelands and aren’t allowed to object. That’s just how war works. The next woman we see is Helen. Homer uses her character to represent women as a sort of evil. When the chiefs of the city see Helen they instantly begin to whisper amongst themselves. Surely there is no blame on Trojans and strong-grieved Achaians if for long time they suffer hardship for a woman like this one. Terrible is the
Helen of Troy was known as the most beautiful woman of the world. In Greek mythology, she was married to a king, captured by Prince Paris of Troy, and caused the Trojan War. Both Edgar Allan Poe and H.D., Hilda Doolittle, wrote poems about Helen. In “To Helen,” Poe’s speaker has an admiring view of her, while in “Helen,” Doolittle’s speaker tells of the hate Greece has for her. The difference in these views is illustrated in the contrasting form, tone, imagery, and diction of the poems. The contrasting
Paris is offered Helen by Aphrodite, and so he takes Helen as his wife from Menelaus. Paris may not have known that taking Helen would have resulted in the Trojan War; however, he still accepted Helen as a bribe, making him an extremely greedy person. After seeing all the bloodshed and lives at the hands of Paris, he should’ve realized that he needed to return Helen. Anyone with the lowest sense of morality would realize that the right thing to do is to return Helen. Paris was lucky enough
Essay In the poems, “To Helen” and “Helen”, both Edgar Allan Poe and H.D. emphasize the beauty of the infamous Helen of Troy; however, the speakers’ attitudes differ as one praises and worships Helen while the other condemns her for her treachery and remains unmoved by her beauty. Although both poems discuss Helen of Troy, both speakers’ withhold different perspectives within the first stanza. In “To Helen” the speaker sets Helen on a pedestal as he uses the apostrophe “Helen, thy beauty is to me”
timé. Aphrodite is the prime example of a goddess who held a lot of power, mainly by using manipulation, in the Trojan War. Helen represents the quintessential idea of a woman representing timé. These two portrayals of women in Greek society depict how people recognized women’s role in society, with Aphrodite representing a woman with power as a manipulative goddess and Helen representing a woman who was merely timé, a prize to be obtained. Aphrodite expressed her
We will never be here again (Troy 2004). The suspected start of the war- over the abduction of Helen, Queen of Sparta- was caused entirely by a godly conflict over who was the most beautiful- Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, was selected to judge. He chose Aphrodite, who in turn gave him Helen, who was her equivalent in beauty amongst humans. In both versions, Paris is portrayed as a wife stealing, thief in the night. His brother
Does Homer exhibit gender bias in the Odyssey? Is the nature of woman as depicted in the Odyssey in any way revealing? Upon examining the text of the Odyssey for differential treatment on men and women, it becomes necessary to distinguish between three possible conclusions. One, differences in treatment reflect the underlying Homeric thesis that women are "different but equal in nature," Two, different treatment of men and women in the text reflect a thesis that women are "different and unequal
Persuasion in the Iliad Throughout history is an endless list of great war leaders who have conquered great masses of land. So, it must take a great speaker to convince thousands of men to leave the comforts of their homes to risk their lives in war. In Homer's, The Iliad, two great nobleman Agamemnon and Odysseus are in the position to push exhausted soldiers back on to the battlefield. Each use different approaches to excite the men, however, it is Odysseus, not King Agamemnon, who succeeds