Achilles and the Mythic Search for Immortality in Homer's Iliad

Introduction: The Meaning of Myth

The myth and legend of Achilles relates fundamentally to the search for immortality — an endemic and pervasive theme in much of the important literature of the Western world. Faced with a world of death and temporality, the Western mind has searched, through art and literature, for images of permanence and transcendence. This is especially evident in the Greek and Homeric legends and myths.

Carl Jung, the renowned psychologist and theorist, recognized myth as a special and important genre of literature. Myths were not idle fiction or fantasy but rather indicative of deeper, archetypal structures and common layers of human experience. These deeper layers of meaning are expressed through the images of myth, and Jung noted that world myths share many striking similarities. He therefore regarded myth and legend as a more accurate measure of the human condition than conventional historical record.

As one scholar notes: "Jung belongs to a group of modern authors who turned to myth rather than to history in their portrait of the human condition… For the transcendentalist Jung, humans cannot be reduced to their historical conditions, for through myth they are in contact with the timeless sphere of the collective unconscious, which in its archetypal representations changes through time and yet retains its basic identity" (Pietikainen 41).

In other words, myths are etiological: they explain and point toward a subtle and complex understanding of mankind, cultures, and the explanation of life. They are artistic constructions that creatively represent humanity's deepest questions and inner discoveries about itself and reality. It is in this light that the myth of Achilles is explored.

Achilles is one of the most significant myths and legends produced in Western literature. This is largely due to the questions the story raises with regard to immortality and the quest for permanence in the face of a reality in which death is the only and inevitable outcome. Achilles, through his mother Thetis, has a close relationship with the transcendent and permanent world of the gods. Yet he is also human, and the decision he makes carries profound significance for the meaning of life and for the eternal human quest for immortality. This paper explores the legend of Achilles with particular reference to Homer's Iliad.

The central thesis is that Achilles faces a choice between human life and immortality through death. He chooses death and immortality over a mundane, comfortable life. This choice makes him a heroic figure, for he represents the archetypal human desire to escape the finite and temporal world. The paper also explores the realization that total transcendence — Godlike immortality — is not humanly possible, and concludes that the myth's significance extends beyond its narrative to illuminate themes central to understanding the human condition.

Achilles: The Hero Between Two Worlds

The story of Achilles is best known through Homer's Iliad, which recounts the Trojan War with Achilles as its central hero. His defining characteristics are his incomparable strength and ability as a warrior, and his uncontrollable anger.

Achilles was the son of Peleus and Thetis. The myth relates that Thetis, knowing her son was fated to die in the Trojan War, disguised him as a girl and hid him at the court of King Lycomedes of Skyros. However, Odysseus found him and persuaded him to take part in the war. In Homer's Iliad, Achilles leads the Greek invasion of Troy. During the final years of the conflict, King Agamemnon stole the captive princess Briseis from Achilles. This caused Achilles to angrily withdraw from the war and withdraw his support from Agamemnon. He allowed his friend Patroclus to don his armor and lead his men into battle; Hector, Prince of Troy, then killed Patroclus. This act drove Achilles back to battle, where he killed Hector and dragged his corpse to the Greek camp. Achilles himself was ultimately killed by Paris.

The legend of his death is further shaped by the story that Thetis, in an attempt to make Achilles immortal, had bathed him in the river Styx. However, the only part of his body left unprotected was his heel — the point by which she held him during the bathing. This vulnerability would prove fatal, and it remains one of the most enduring images in Greek mythology.

The Search for Immortality in the Iliad

The story of Achilles is dominated, as is much of Homer's Iliad, by the question of and desire for immortality. It is significant that Achilles stands between the world of the gods and the world of men. As the son of a human father and a divine mother, he occupies an ambiguous position with respect to the question of immortality — an ambiguity that heightens the urgency of his choices throughout the narrative.

Achilles is motivated to search for immortality not only by self-preservation, but because, as a mythical figure, his actions and deeds are intimately linked to society and culture. Following the perceptions of Jung and others, mythical figures are understood as representative of archetypal knowledge about life and reality. As such, Achilles represents an underlying archetypal desire within society for permanency in an uncertain temporal world, conveying the common human fear of the loss of social identity and meaning. As one reading puts it: "Achilles embodies the driving goal of Western culture in its attempt to preserve society and make the individual immortal through unity with it" (Achilles' Search for Immortality).

Within the Greek mythical complex there are two central forms of immortality: the immortality of the gods, which lies beyond all human understanding; and human or socio-cultural immortality. Confronted with this distinction, Achilles in the Iliad first attempts to avoid death by leaving the battle. His search for divine immortality proves futile due to his essential humanity, and he ultimately returns to battle to attain mortal glory and cultural immortality. Human immortality, in this sense, is the permanence attained in the face of death by being remembered throughout history for one's actions and deeds — a desire expressed throughout much of Western literary history. As the same source notes: "immortality is glory (being remembered after one's death). The need for this immortality is represented all throughout early Western writing" (ibid).

Conclusion: The Myth and the Human Condition

The myth of Achilles and the search for immortality carries a significance that extends well beyond its narrative, revealing themes that speak directly to the understanding of the human condition. Achilles' choice — to embrace an early death and the immortality of legend rather than a long and unremarkable life — stands as one of Western literature's most powerful expressions of the human refusal to accept the finality of death. It encapsulates the archetypal desire, present in all cultures, to transcend the limitations of mortal existence.

Through a Jungian lens, the myth operates at the level of the collective unconscious, expressing truths that are as relevant today as they were in the ancient world. The impossibility of divine immortality for a being who is also human is acknowledged, yet the story affirms that cultural and historical immortality — being remembered, celebrated, and mythologized — is a genuine and meaningful form of transcendence. Achilles achieves this through his deeds, his anger, his grief, and ultimately his death. His story endures precisely because it speaks to something universal: the desire to matter, to leave a mark, and to outlast the inevitability of physical death.