The Hero Archetype In The Iliad

Tamora’s resolve get the most violent revenge possible – ‘I’ll find a day to massacre them all, | And raze their faction and their family (1.1.455-6) – continues into her implementing the same inhuman brutality that has been displayed by the Romans. The atrociousness that took place against Lavinia is a gruesome, yet critical, component of the play. The episode brings sexual violence into the story, and ushers in a conspicuous stretch of verbal violence – that is inherent in the speech. The sexually vicious conversation between Chiron and Demetrius is both sexist and masochistic: ‘Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her [Lavinia]: | First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw. | This minion stood upon her chastity’

Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 BC) is one of the many historical figures placed in hell, in Dante’s inferno. Alexander the great is located in the first ring of the seventh circle in hell. His crimes to be placed here was going to war, and conquering, those around him. The punishment in the first ring of the seventh circle is to be boiled in a river of blood. The symbolism of this punishment is that river of blood represents all the blood they have spilt.

Epic Heroes: Gilgamesh and Achilles Achilles, from the ancient Greek epic of the Iliad, and Gilgamesh from the ancient Sumerian epic has many similarities as powerful god-like heroes. Achilles was seen as arrogant, and Gilgamesh was viewed as ruthless. However, Both Gilgamesh and Achilles hold on to this grief and rage for their loved ones and in both epics we see this factor blind both men as they hold on to death and loss. In Homer’s Illiad Achilles is grief stricken by the death of his extremely close friend, Patroclus. Homer described Achilles’ reaction to the death of Patroclus, “Both hands clawed the ground for soot and filth, he poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face...Overpowered by all his power, sprawled in the dust,

To begin with, one of the themes that connect the literary works to Greek civilization is wrath. In the Iliad, the book was full of the theme wrath. One example of it is the Iliad when Achilles found his best friend killed and rejoined the war to kill Hector. Another Literary work with the theme of wrath is Medea. She was full of wrath for her husband, Jason, and killed their two sons because of it.

When Macbeth became King he made lots of bad decisions and hurt lots of people, he killed Scotland. This made Macduff hold so much anger that he went to

Widely regarded as one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, King Lear boasts violent interactions that are unmatched by nearly all works of contemporary drama and literature. Given the bloody aftermath that results from King Lear’s downfall, violent encounters are abundant throughout the entirety of the well-known play. Throughout King Lear, violence is manifested in many forms, specifically between man and nature and man and man. While violence between man and nature is characterized as a natural force that serves to bring individuals together, violence between man and man is characterized as an unnatural force that serves to tear individuals apart. Overpowering and abundant, it is the overwhelming presence of unnatural violence that ultimately leads to the untimely downfall of the King and his Kingdom.

Shakespeare foreshadows Macbeth winning the fight through this quote: “Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops / and fix 'd his head upon our battlements” (I.ii.22-23) this shows that Macbeth is a very brutal man. This foreshadows the way that he is going to kill lots of people, including the king. killing the king can foreshadow through, "ripping the heart out of Scotland”. This is characterizing Macbeth to be a big fictional killer through the use of foreshadowing. During the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare characterizes macbeth through many different ways such as the use of foreshadowing.

The grim setting of the Iliad, two defining characteristics emerge from the ashes of the destructive power of war. Human nature is susceptible to violence as Homer clearly shows in the descriptive, brutal death of Sarpedon when two aspects of humanity - cruelty and compassion- arise from the bloodshed of war. The violent death of Sarpedon helps the reader understand the effects of war on the human condition by juxtaposing the acts of cruelty and compassion demonstrated by the epic’s characters. Through the unthinkable atrocities of war and the murder of Sarpedon, Homer lifts the veil of societal expectation to reveal the human side of cruelty. The “killing jaws” of the violent battle spurred the warriors to further engage in dark and increasingly cruel actions, pushing them further into inhumanity.

Some people may think that the cyclops is the greatest villain for many reasons, he is loud, strong and angry. To begin, the cyclopes is loud. According to the text, the cyclopes was stabbed by a huge stick in the eye, and “he woke with a hideous scream and the greeks immediately scattered out of his reach (Homer 27).” This shows that the cyclopes is really loud because he woke with a hideous scream, it is true that the cyclops is loud. Additionally, the cyclopes is strong. In the text, when the cyclopes and his friend had gone he groped this

Greek mythology was very fond of corrupt characters, even in famous works such as Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad one can see the extreme violence – In The Odyssey a cyclops furiously devours a human being and then he is stabbed in the eye— And it was more or less a reflection of their barbaric but intelligent way of life. The Romans adapted these stories and legends that were all overturned by Christianity around the 300’s AD. The fall of the Roman Empire fell and an enormously conservative religious culture took its place; surprisingly enough, there were several works of violent fiction during the Dark Ages such as Dante’s Inferno and The Divine Comedy – Satan eats Judas for the rest of eternity—other famous works might have been the Marquis