Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
He seeks to heal his broken relations with Achilles only when the Greeks are desperate, a transparent ruse Achilles easily sees through. Agamemnon does not go as one of the emissaries to Achilles, but sends Odysseus, laden with gifts. The general refuses to come humbly bearing a personal apology for his foolishness, as a good leader might try to heal the rift in the Greek camp. Achilles only agrees to return to war in Book 19 after his friend Patroclus dies, not because of the gifts Agamemnon gives to in reparation for his earlier insult. Agamemnon should have seen that Achilles was less motivated by material rewards than he was by love for people he cared about, like Brisesis and Patroclus. Agamemnon is too egotistical to understand the psychological motivations of other people. This is part of his self-obsession -- because he is motivated by spoils, he assumes all other people are motivated solely by the need for power and satisfying...
This motivates the Greeks to want to fight harder. Finally, in Books 22 and 24, Agamemnon is unable to control Achilles after Achilles refuses to give up Hector's body for a proper burial, as was expected during the rules of war of the age. Only when a real leader shows himself in the narrative, in the example of Priam, does the reader gain instruction as to how a true leader of men should behave. Priam goes to Achilles tent himself and selflessly appeals to Achilles as a human being and a father, rather than attempts to order the Greek warrior to surrender Hector's body. Achilles is moved by Priam's moral example, more than any gifts someone could bestow upon him. Priam, although an enemy, understands Achilles far better than the self-interested…
Here we can see that Agamemnon struggled over what to do but finally set his eyes upon the prize. His crime becomes justified through the victory. However, when Agamemnon kills his own daughter, he is violating one of the most fundamental rules set in place by the gods, which prohibits the murder of a family member. Agamemnon is indifferent to what he has done. When Clytaemestra confronts him about
And call each man by his name and his father's line, show them all respect. Not too proud now. We should be the ones doing the work. On our backs, from the day we were born, It seems that Zeus has piled on the hardships." With his order clear, he sent his brother off while he went after Nestor, the old commander. He found him beside his black ship and shelter, stretched on a polyurethane
4. Murder and Execution: DD -- The Young Man pleads to the blood thirsty crowd: "If you hang me to this lantern, will that make you see any clearer?" The demands of the crowd for more blood are thus momentarily stifled by the good sense of their next victim: he points out the erroneous rationale that leads them to murder and execution: it is no way to reach an ideal. AG --
Their prophecies completely shape the life of Oedipus. It was the oracle who informed Oedipus that he will kill his father and marry his mother. This prophecy led him to abandon Corinth for fear of killing his father and marrying his mother. When he left Corinth he came across a man who he did not know was Laius and killed him. He married his wife Jocasta and towards the
This is perhaps a significant difference between the two characters. While on one hand, Beowulf is undisputedly the leader of his kingdom, Achilles is an unofficial leader, unrecognized in function, but perceived so on the battlefield. Achilles is also more human in reactions and the relations he ties with the other individuals than Beowulf. There is no mention of any close companion in Beowulf and the reader doesn't perceive that Beowulf
Gilgamesh epic, 2000 B.C., is a work of three thousand lines, written on twelve tablets that was discovered amid the ruins of Nineveh and relates the adventures of the imperious Glgamesh and his friend Enkidu (Gilgamesh pp). The extraordinary essence of the poem lies not only in its antiquity but also in the quality of the writing and the comprehension of humanity (Jager pp). The Gilgamesh Epic, the first epic bequeathed