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Examples Of Achilles's Tragic Flaws

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Nathan Raker Mr. Kintigh World Literature 12 January 2023 Tragic Flaws Everyone is flawed, but those at the top are liable to fall the furthest should they allow their faults to get the better of them. This is true even for fictional characters from classical literature. Classical literature reveals the common truth that everyone has flaws, even heroes, as shown through Gilgamesh from “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, Achilles from Homer’s The Iliad, and Macbeth from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Gilgamesh, despite being a powerful, god-like warrior, suffers from arrogance that brings him much turmoil. He is a poor leader of his city-state. He is described as “arrogant, and he continually oversteps his bounds as a ruler” (“From the Epic of Gilgamesh” 139). …show more content…

It is described that “Achilles’ anger, doomed and ruinous,/that caused Achaeans loss on bitter loss/and crowded brave souls into the undergloom…” (Homer 229). Achilles’ rage would ultimately lead to unnecessary and needless death on the side of the Greeks, extending the bloody conflict significantly. His ire is drawn by Agamemnon when he wounds his pride; Agamemnon demanded that Achilles give up his prize - a woman who he had captured - and thus he withdrew from fighting. Later, when he shifts his anger towards the Trojan hero, Hector, he becomes so maddened with rage that he forgoes any sense of honor that he once had. After killing Hector, he denied him the right to be properly buried, and allowed his fellow warriors to deface and stab the lifeless corpse. Finally, he lashed his body to his chariot and paraded around his vanquished foe. It is described that Hector’s “whole head was blackened. Looking down, his mother tore her braids, threw off her veil, and wailed, heartbroken to behold her son” (Homer 260). This shows that Achilles' animalistic wrath makes him devolve into a depraved warrior that is less than human, despite the fact that he is more than human. Achilles’ inhuman rage directly leads to the pain, death, and sorrow of his fellow man on both sides of the

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