Achilles In The Odyssey

This image describes and symbolizes a struggle between two opposing mythical warriors. Both from different worlds and ways of life, both attempting to conquer the other in battle. The first being in the image (the one on the right that is about to slay his enemy) is a great mythological warrior, the son of Peleus, named Achilles. Achilles is a famous Greek hero that many Greek citizens, at that time, could relate themselves too. He had characteristics that almost any Greek male wanted to imitate. Achilles was strong, courageous, loyal, and most importantly a brave warrior. The second figure in the image is Penthesilea, a direct polar opposite of Achilles. Penthesilea is the one of the greatest Amazon warriors and queen of the Amazons. A woman
whom fights in battle directly opposes the Greek view of the proper gender stereotype. The image of Achilles and Penthesilea symbolizes two polarities: one male, one female, one modernly cultured, the other wild, one a warrior hoplite, and the other chthonic. Achilles is dressed as a hoplite, a fighting class representing wealth and pride. The hoplites were from the wealthy class in Greece, the privileged ones who were governed to fight. They represent their pride by showing off their bodies with just a few articles of armor, sometimes almost completely naked, having nothing to hide. Penthesilea on the other hand, demonstrated a wild and independent she-warrior. The Amazons, also called the one breasted, didn’t believe in the Greek male and female gender roles. They governed themselves and the women served as members of society instead of the men. This strongly contrasted a strong difference in comparison to the Greek society, where the Greeks society was heavily influenced by male dominance. Before Achilles had come in contact with Penthesilea, he had heard of her glory in battle and this intrigued him. Women were not known to be fighters, and this woman who was winning all of her battles must have seemed oddly challenging. Unfamiliar and peculiar to Achilles, almost an alien thought. Eventually Achilles is able to confront Penthesilea, and for a while they were evenly matched in combat. After a while, Achilles got the upper hand and killed Penthesilea. The moment after Penthesilea was slain by Achilles, he saw her true beauty and fell in love with her. However, it was too late because he had already killed Penthesilea, and ultimately lost part of himself to her. This final moment of struggle can be symbolized as part of a tragic hero’s journey. As Achilles confronts the other world, Penthesilea, he kills her without knowing his true love for her. Achilles in some ways is victorious over his opponent, but also at the same time comes to suffering by killing the women he loves. From a point of view, one could conclude that Achilles may have seen a brief glimpse of the other world right before he slayed Penthesilea. One could say that in killing Penthesilea summarized a portion of Achilles heroic journey.
Three examples of this struggle in Greek myth
First Example, Euripides Medea
In the story of Medea, a tragic story unfolds as a young sorceress named Medea has committed her life to a man named Jason. Medea had helped Jason through his journey in his search of the Golden Fleece. She had given away everything from her previous life to be with Jason, her nostos and her origins. After they had conceived two children, Jason decides to take on a consort named Glauce, the daughter of the King of Corinth, Creon. Medea is enraged that Jason is planning on leaving hers and they’re children, and she plots her revenge against Jason.
The tragic story unfolds as Medea plans on getting back at Jason by killing Glauce. Medea gives Glauce a beautiful dress, tainted with poison, as a gift of acceptance of Jason leaving her. When Glauce puts on her dress she immediately begins to burn from the poison, and her father Creon, the King of Corinth, out of aguish grabs ahold of Glauce and they die together. This act of vengeance stabs a dagger of pain into Jason, because of the death of Glauce and her father. After this, Medea plans on killing their children knowing that the pain that will be dealt to Jason will be greater than the pain caused to herself. Once Medea has killed their children, she leaves Jason to suffer in sorrow and to his ruined life that she had afflicted on him.
Medea can be considered a tragic hero because she’s of royal blood, and she tragically loses her marriage and her family in the process of seeking vengeance towards Jason. Medea in some twisted way justifies the wrongs that Jason had committed towards her, but only at the cost of killing Glauce, Creon, and the bone chilling action of killing their children. Medea can be symbolized as a tragic hero because of the pain and sacrifice that she endures to reclaim justification of Jason’s wrongs. She conquers the world by winning against Jason.
Odysseus’s story is an excellent example of a hero’s journey.
Odysseus is a heroic war hero who after fighting in the Trojan War is lost at sea, escapes from a magical nymph named Calypso. He then sails from island to island, outwits a Cyclops, angers the Sea god Poseidon, and intrigues the interest of the god Athena which whom will assist Odysseus to make it back Ithaca. Through all of his struggles he eventually makes it back home to his ever waiting wife Penelope, who has been pursued by multitudes of men in hopes of wife. Odysseus must outsmart Penelope’s suitors with wit. Penelope sets up a contest that the suitors are not capable of winning, but Odysseus is completes the contest with ease. Once Odysseus has completed the contest, he then kills the suitors with the help of his son, Telemachus, for disgracing their home and for perusing his wife Penelope.
Penelope is Odysseus animus, and even though Odysseus has been gone for over a decade she still only wants Odysseus. Even through Odysseus’s journey, he is tempted by beings sexually, with power, and with a fresh start. At the end Odysseus still chooses Penelope, his true love back in Ithaca. This strong connection between Penelope and Odysseus can be symbolized as their bed that he had carved from an olive tree. Their bed is unmoving, a static equilibrium, just like their
marriage.
Oedipus the King is a story of Oedipus, an orphaned child given away by his parents Laius and Jocasta.
Once Oedipus is a grown man he kills his father, Laius, without knowledge of his father’s identity. Then he marries the king’s wife, Jocasta, which is his mother. Hence the term the Oedipus Complex arises. Once his mother comes to the conclusion that Oedipus is her son, she then kills their children and herself. Oedipus sees that his mother and lover has killed herself, he gauges out his eyes so that he doesn’t have to see his sins, and to remind him of the wrongs he had done. After Oedipus gauges out his eyes, he leaves the city, and spends the rest of his days wandering. Oedipus is considered a tragic hero because of his royal bloodline, and the suffering that
endures.
Many are familiar with the exciting and extensive story of the journey of Frodo Baggins. The Fellowship’s journey to destroy the One Ring in Mount Doom. The main character, Frodo, comes into possession of the One Ring, as a gift from his uncle Bilbo Baggins. The One Ring was forged in Mount Doom by an ancient being in attentions of ruling Middle Earth. Hence the only way that the ring can be destroyed is in the fires of where it was created.
Frodo struggles on his heroic journey to Mordor, encountering a wide variety of creatures and beings varying from goblins to Ringwraith’s. At first Frodo believes that he has been blessed with a magical ring, but later finds out that the ring is a great burden influenced by evil. The One Ring directly connects Frodo to the other world, and through its power becomes a part of Frodo’s being. Once the ring is destroyed in Mount Doom, Frodo loses a part of himself to the other world, a part of his being that will never be replaced by anything in the mortal world.
Frodo’s journey comes into completion when he travels across the sea to the elves homeland, the only place Frodo can truly feel at peace. During Frodo’s encounter on his journey he loses part of himself to the mortal world, thus he must travel to the other world to be at peace. He travels across the sea with the elves in pursuit of his nostalgia. This story can symbolize a hero’s journey that ends by the hero finding their nostos, not in their world but finding their nostos in the other world.