There is fighting between Achilles and Agamemnon on the Achaean side of the war. The events of the Iliad open with the rage of Achilles. He is angry with Agamemnon because Agamemnon took Achilles' concubine, a war prize, from him. This event caused Achilles to refuse to fight in the war against the Trojans.
Hector kills Patroclus, sparking Achilles' rage. Achilles' intense reaction to Patroclus' death and his subsequent mistreatment of Hector's corpse are two examples of his anger in the poem. After killing Hector, Achilles drags his body through the dirt.
Hector must die because he has been the murderous agent of Achilles' wrath, killing the Greeks so that Achilles might receive honor according to the bitter plan of Zeus. Hector's death will complete the wrath of Achilles and the plan of Zeus.
After Agamemnon abducts Briseis, Achilles becomes so angry with Agamemnon that he will stop at nothing to get revenge on the king. Not only does Achilles himself refuse to return to battle, he also asks his mother to go to Zeus and ask for the god's assistance in turning the tide of war against the Achaeans.
The main conflict in The Iliad is caused from the hubris, or excessive pride, of the main character, Achilles.
According to the ancient Greek epic poet Homer, the Trojan War was caused by Paris, son of the Trojan king, and Helen, wife of the Greek king Menelaus, when they went off together to Troy. To get her back, Menelaus sought help from his brother Agamemnon, who assembled a Greek army to defeat Troy.
The principal antagonist is King Agamemnon, who abuses his power and betrays Achilles by stealing the warrior's favorite war prize, the young maiden Briseis. Achilles sees Agamemnon's act as both a personal betrayal and a sign of the king's failure as a leader.
The one-on-one combat ends with Achilles killing Hector. Still pulsing with anger and needing to satisfy his revenge and grief for having lost Patroclus, Achilles allows Achaean soldiers to stab and mutilate Hector's corpse.
The Iliad Book 1: The Rage of Achilles Story Summary. Poem opens up with the first stanza focusing on the rage of Achilles at Agamemnon that causes the death of many souls because of pride.
Agamemnon flies into a rage and says that he will return Chryseis only if Achilles gives him Briseis as compensation. Agamemnon's demand humiliates and infuriates the proud Achilles. The men argue, and Achilles threatens to withdraw from battle and take his people, the Myrmidons, back home to Phthia.
Though never specified it can be inferred that Patroclus is gay. Deidama was heartbroken and jealous of Achilles's love for Patroclus, Deidameia summons Patroclus to have sex with her, which he does; he notes that she seemed to want something more from him, which he was unable to provide. .
Although he has a good reason to be angry in the beginning of the poem, his anger throughout the rest of the poem is unjustified and excessive. Achilles hatred, anger and wrath is continuous throughout the poem.
Achilles and Agamemnon started quarreling because Agamemnon took Achilles' war prize, his concubine. Achilles gets angry because of this and refuses to fight.
My dear comrade's dead . . . " (18.92-4). In this statement, Achilles finally realizes the folly of his rage and decides to seek vengeance for the death of his comrade. This is the first time Achilles acts like an adult, leaving behind his youthful rage.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on. The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us. “The same honor waits for the coward and the brave.
It can be argued that Achilles's fatal flaw is that of hubris, excessive pride and overconfidence. This is what prevents Achilles from making amends with Agamemnon when he steals Briseis from him, refusing to accept his offer of recompense for the humiliations he inflicted upon him.
When Achilles learns of the death of Patroklos, he bursts into tears, tearing his hair and throwing himself on the ground. His sorrowful lament is heard by his mother, Thetis, and she comes to comfort him. She points out that if Achilles avenges Patroklos, he himself will be killed.
However, it also brings him extraordinary grief, as exemplified in the poem: “Once Achilles has worn out his sorrow, the desire for tears leaves, at the same time, his heart and his body.” Unlike the classical portrayal of heroic figures as killing machines, Homer's epic celebrates their innate humanity, while imbuing ...
Achilles' most distinctive characteristic is his invulnerability, coupled with the fact that he has one small spot on his body which is vulnerable. The lesson, it seems, is that everyone has their weakness, capable of bringing them down.
The warrior Achilles is one of the great heroes of Greek mythology. According to legend, Achilles was extraordinarily strong, courageous and loyal, but he had one vulnerability–his “Achilles heel.” Homer's epic poem The Iliad tells the story of his adventures during the last year of the Trojan War.
Additionally, we know he is a Greek and hails from Opus, where he was a prince and the son of Menoetius. However, he never mentions his race or the color of his skin. Thus, while the audience knows that he has, generally, a dark coloring, his race is left up to the imagination.
The name grew more popular, becoming common soon after the seventh century BC and was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία (Achilleía), attested in Attica in the fourth century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".
Who was Achilles' love interest? Achilles love interest is Briseis. Although he originally took her as a prize, Achilles seems to love her. She also loves him and hopes to marry him.
During an absence of Menelaus, however, Helen fled to Troy with Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam, an act that ultimately led to the Trojan War. When Paris was slain, Helen married his brother Deiphobus, whom she betrayed to Menelaus once Troy was captured.
Helen's beauty was believed pernicious. She was imagined to be a direct avatar of the kalon kakon – the beautiful evil – the first ever woman according to Hesiod's revisionist theogony composed in the seventh century BC. Helen was a thing essentially bad, cloaked in beauty.