There is a vast difference in the portrayal of society from the early writers such as Homer and the later writers such as Hesiod and Aeschylus. The society changes a great deal. In the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer writes his stories as the voice of an aristocrat. The higher classes are still seen as good people in his time and are glorified by his writings. In the Iliad the protagonists are the Achaeans. Homer does not make an attempt humanize them at all throughout the story. In fact Homer almost dehumanizes them instead. The opening scene of book 6 for example is describing the Achaeans killing various big figures of the Trojan army. It then turns to a Trojan man, Adrestrus, pleading for his life. King Agamemnon tells Melenaus, “Let us not spare a single one of them- not even the child unborn and in its mother’s womb; let not a man of them be left alive, but let all in Ilius perish, unheeded and forgotten.” He does choose to humanize the Trojans however. The scene of Hector visiting his wife Andromache and his son Astyanax is the best example of this. His wife wants him to stay with them and spend what time they have left together. Even when he knows they will lose the war and his wife will be in slavery when he dies in battle he still goes back to fight. He seeks out …show more content…
Instead of being the voice of an aristocrat such as in Homer’s stories Hesiod is the voice of the tyrants and the common man of the middle class, the hoplites. The aristocrats are now seen as bad during this time with tyrants taking control all over. In Hesiod’s poem the antagonists are those who don’t work, just take things without giving back, and corrupt judges and aristocrats. These people would all get Zeus’ justice he warns. The antagonists are those who do honest labor. He is also warning people that people needed to change if their world was to survive. It could not go on the way that it