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Theme Of Deception In The Aeneids

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Compassion/Deception vs. People “A lighted candle of compassion can easily illuminate the world more than the blinding light of anger, intolerance and violence combined” ~ Dodinsky. This quote captures how compassion can blind someone from what is really happening. Compassion and deception play a huge role in the Aeneid: Book Ⅱ. In the Aeneid, Sinon lies and the Trojans feel compassionate towards him and want to make themselves look better. Throughout this paper, the truth about deception and the science behind compassion are revealed and how these emotions relate to the Aeneid. Compassion can easily blind someone from the truth of a situation. Compassion is a “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate …show more content…

People use deception in “good” ways and bad ways. In other words, people think “little white lies” are a form of lie that is accepted because it’s “not hurting anybody”. Psychology Today created a project about deception, to try to explore the main reasons people lie. Allison Kornet, an author for Psychology Today, wrote about their results, explaining, “...one in every four of the participants’ lies were told solely for the benefit of another person” (The Truth About Lying). These are the “little white lies” that we tell; things like “No, that dress doesn’t make you look fat!” or (the big one) “Of course, your secret is safe with me”. These lies might see harmless, but they can really affect someone. If a person finds out that someone else told their secret, than that could ruin a relationship or maybe even result in that person losing their job. If a person continues to lie, others will steer clear of them because who wants to talk to a person who is only going to lie to them? Given these points, deception always has a negative effect on …show more content…

Starting off with compassion, the Trojans say that the whole reason that the Greeks defeated them with the horse was because they were so compassionate towards Sinon. Sinon is a Greek who claims to have been left by his fellow Greeks and he is now whining about it to the Trojans, “The whimpering speech brought us up short; we felt a twinge for him” (Virgil, Aeneid: Book Ⅱ 98-99). In other words, the Trojans fell for his sob story, so they let him into their city; along with the horse. Now, Sinon was, without a doubt, deceiving the Trojans right there on the spot. Especially when he said, “...I am justified in dropping all allegiance to the Greeks-” (Virgil, Aeneid: Book Ⅱ 207-208). Sinon was the bait in the Greeks mischievous plan. He only said those things so that the Trojans would let him and the horse into their city. Sinon made everything up and the Trojans fell for it because they were too busy trying to be compassionate. As a result, compassion and deception play a huge role in the Aeneid: Book

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