Contrasting The Iliad and The Odyssey through Achilles and Odysseus The Iliad and The Odyssey are both extremely influential books to this day. Despite being written by the same man, there are several considerable differences between the two, demonstrated in the tone and the values of the culture of each book.
In The Iliad, as a result of the setting being so extreme, the tone is widely accepted as exceedingly violent and tragic because of the extensive amounts of death. A place that truly shows this is in the text is when the men of both the Trojan and Achaean armies “wept warm tears as they lifted [the dead bodies] on the wagons… [and] piled the bodies upon the pyre, with their hearts in sorrow” (Homer 421). Readers cannot help but feel down with all the violence. The violence coincides quite well with the personality of one of the main heroes from The Iliad, Achilles. “Godlike Achilles” (Homer 73) is the epitome of violence, as he is the greatest Achaean warrior. He
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Men in The Iliad often only seek honor in life no matter the cost and Achilles is a perfect example of this. He deliberately sought for Zeus to restore his bruised self-esteem which resulted in the slaughter of thousands of men on his side of the battle. Odysseus is really quite different because he often values loyalty more than honor. Honor is a fundamental part of ancient Greek culture so when a person values something over it, it is quite a big deal and says a lot about the person. He constantly checks if his wife, Penelope, has been faithful. He believes that loyalty can really make a person good or bad. She stands as a huge symbol of loyalty throughout the entire book. Penelope actually brought Odysseus to tears when she declared how loyal she had been in Book 23. “He wept as he held the wife he loved, the soul of loyalty…” (Homer