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Patience In The Iliad

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Patience is a Virtue: Odyssean v. Iliadic.
At heart Odysseus is an Odyssean character but like every Greek hero, he must use extreme violence sometimes. In the Greek society, murder is not frowned upon at all. It is very common. Usually, It is how men assert their power. When odysseus kills all the suitors, he does it to prove that he is the most powerful. Murder is also common when defending oneself, like when Odysseus and his men kill the Cyclops. Although he does commit violent crimes, this does not necessarily make him an Iliadic character. The Iliad and Odyssey are different types of stories, with different plot connotations.
The Iliad is a war story. The characters in the Iliad get angered easily and react quickly. “At one glance Hector …show more content…

A strong characteristic of Iliadic characters is: they are easily provoked. “It is no accident that the Iliad 's greatest hero is noted for his quickness to anger.” (Murnaghan). Achilles is angered by Agamemnon in “The Rage of Achilles”, he calls the powerful Agamemnon, “shameless-armoured in shamelessness-always shrewd with greed.” (Il.1.174-75). He insults a king, claiming that Agamemnon does not honor the warriors code and is selfish, thinking only for himself. If Achilles was in Odysseus’ place (in disguise while watching his house being disrespected) I doubt that he would be able to stay in disguise because he acts in the moment. He is strong minded; he doesnt think twice when he is faced with the choice to kill agamemnon, he thinks “Should [I] draw the long sharp sword slung at [my] hip thrust it through the ranks and kill Agamemnon now?”. Achilles almost does kill him but Hera sends down athena who tells Achilles, “Stop this fighting, now. Don 't lay hand to sword. Lash him with threats of the price that he will face” (Il. 1.149). It takes a goddess to stop

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Odysseus and Thomas Jefferson: Looking into History to Define What a Hero is Heroes used to be considered people who held great power and always came out on top no matter how high the odds were stacked against them. Today we are more critical of the people we look up to, which I believe to be a good thing. We now realize that the people we consider heroes must be good people, who even though they have flaws, try their hardest to do good for the world. Another interesting question is what it means to be a bad person. Is a bad person someone who is inherently bad?

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The main character Odysseus in the Odyssey written by Homer is generally thought to be a great hero; however, he shows more traits of a quite flawed character on closer inspection. Around the beginning of Odysseus’ journey home after the war, Odysseus decides to take a detour to the home of a cyclops deciding to not listen to his men’s suggestions to leave while they still could; consequently, it does not end well: “Ah, how sound that was, Yet I refused. I wished to see the caveman, what he had to offer no pretty sight it turned out, for my friend” (9.130-132). This thought by Odysseus shows that he realized his decision to go to the mysterious island wasn’t the most rational one and that his men’s pleas to leave were the better option, but he decides to be stubborn and place his curiosity before his men’s safety resulting in a non-heroic

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It is so deeply rooted that it encompasses Achilles, becoming a characteristic of this great warrior, influencing his actions and chooses throughout the story, such as leaving the fighting and considering the idea to return to Pythia. The depth of Achilles rage and hatred is demonstrated through in his response to Agamemnon, concerning the gifts he offered as compensation for his wrongs, saying that “not if his gifts outnumbered all the grains of sand and dust in the earth, no not even then could Agamemnon bring my fighting spirit round” (9.470-472). The true rage of Achilles is extremely important to the entire story of The Iliad, as from Book One through Book Nine Achilles allows this rage to control his actions, causing him to Achilles remains absent from the fighting as well as causing him to pray to Zeus that Trojans may receive the upper hand in the fighting so that the Greeks may suffer for Agamemnon’s actions. Therefore, this profound rage is an extremely important aspect of The Iliad, as it ultimately effects not only Achilles actions but also course of the

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If I stay here and fight before the city of Troy, there will be no home- coming for me but my fame shall never die; if I go home to my native land, there will be no great fame for me, but I shall live long and not die an early death.” (Homer 110) This shows that he is selfishness and fearful at the same time of losing and dying in the war. In the very beginning of the Iliad, King Agamemnon and Achilles have an argument for a couple of different reasons. After, the Achians won a battle against a city that was allied with the Trojans each of them received a prize consisted of a young woman from the war.

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