Heroism Through Humanity In The Iliad Essay

, Research Paper

Heroes are defined by their humanity. Only after Achilles accepts his fate and comes to terms with his own mortality does he regain his humanity, and only then can he be considered a hero.

The Iliad opens with the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, (Iliad 1.1) and closes with the burial of Hector breaker of horses (Iliad 24.944). The bracketing of the poem with descriptions of these two men suggests both their importance and their connection to one another. They lead parallel lives as the top fighters in their respective armies, and, as the poem progresses, their lives and deaths become more and more closely linked. They each struggle to fulfill the heroic ideal, and they both grapple with temptations that lure them away from heroism. While Hector embodies the human heroic ideal, Achilles strives to surpass human heroism to achieve some identification with the divine. These delusions of grandeur diminish Achilles greatly; despite his efforts he can never be immortal, and a mortal god, besides being an oxymoron, would be decidedly pitiful.

Achilles heroism, therefore, is incumbent on his acceptance of his humanity. Achilles entangles Hector in his struggle to come to terms with his own mortality by recognizing himself in his enemy. Hector comes to represent the humanity of Achilles, against which Achilles rebels and which he tries to destroy in his desire to be immortal. Their fates are therefore linked, and the death of the one necessitates the death of the other. In finally giving over Hector s body to Priam, Achilles is at his most heroic; for in this action he accepts his fate, his mortality, and his humanity.

The two men are lured away from heroism in opposite directions; Hector, by his connections to home and family, and Achilles, by his connections to the gods. To be a hero is to sacrifice one’s own personal and familial ties in favor of facing death and striving for glory. In the poem, Hector is repeatedly tempted to abandon the front lines of battle against the Achaeans and to defend his city from within its walls. He is also very attached to his wife, Andromache, the rest of his family, and the entire city of Troy. When he travels into Troy to fetch Paris, he makes a deliberate detour to visit his family and they bid him to remain within the city walls. But although he loves his family intensely, he resists the temptation to remain with them. He says that he must answer the call to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers, winning my father great glory, glory for myself (Iliad 6.527-29). He is determined to stay on the path of the hero, but it is very difficult for him to resist the pull of his loved ones. Just before his fatal encounter with Achilles, he is almost swayed by his family to stay within the walls of Troy. Why debate, my friend. Why thrash things out. he asks himself (Iliad 22.146). Hector is constantly torn between heroism and familial ties, but he finally chooses the path of glory as he turns to face Achilles, his murderer.

Achilles, on the other hand, strays from the way of the hero by denying his mortality and fancying himself a god. He is, after all, the son of a goddess. But Thetis could not endow her son with immortality, only with greatness. Achilles attitude towards the battles taking place just outside his ship is reminiscent of how the immortal gods react to the battles. For most of the poem, he sits back from the fighting and observes it from afar. When the members of the embassy come to entice him back into the battle, they find him delighting his heart now on the fine lyre (Iliad 9.223-24), which is a very relaxed and decadent activity considering that there is a war going on. The way that Achilles asks Zeus, through his mother, to pin the Achaeans back against their ships, trap them round the bay and mow them down (Iliad 1.486-87) is indicative of a god-like lack of reverence for human life, even the for the lives of his comrades. Hera exhibits this sort of indifference when she makes her deal with Zeus. She gives Zeus permission to raze the walls (Iliad 4.65) of her three most favorite cities in return for letting her destroy Troy.

In his attempt to become superhuman, then, Achilles instead becomes inhuman. Achilles most desperately tries to deny his mortality in his rampage against the Trojans. He arms himself in new armor specially made for him by Hephaestus, which can be worn and gazed upon only by him. The other Myrmidons, Achilles own men, were afraid of it, none dared to look straight at the glare, each fighter shrank away (Iliad 19.17-18). Achilles says, only immortal gods could forge such work, no man on earth could ever bring it off! Now, by heaven, I ll arm and go to war (Iliad 19.25-27). His disdain for everything human, then, is exhibited in the fact that he will only wear armor commissioned especially for him by the gods.

Achilles’ rampage is also decidedly inhuman (Iliad 20.555). It is described in these terms over and over again, as he fights like a frenzied god (Iliad 21.21), like something superhuman (Iliad 21.256). The nature of the rampage is indeed very inhuman and unheroic. Instead of approaching each opponent with respect and honor for their lineage, Achilles kills indiscriminately insane to hack more flesh (Iliad 21.37). Here again he shows a disregard for the value of human life. He kills so many people that he clogs up the movement of the river Scam