Odysseus And Ajax

contradicts o Brien because he believes that a true war story “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue” (Brien 1), therefore making ajax a non-true story.
In Sophocles ajax, the story starts of when ajax was slaughtering livestock but before he did this there was some back story that must be known in order to conclude why he did what he did. ajax is a warrior that has participated in numerous wars and is the second-best warrior after Achilles. After Achilles dies in battle his armor remains and is going to be given to either ajax or Odysseus whoever gives a good speech on why they think they deserve Achilles armor. After each one giving their speech Odysseus is the one who seems more intellectual and can give a good speech on the other hand
Out of rage of not obtaining the armor that he thought he deserved he decides to go and get revenge on all his warrior members including Odysseus. But before he could do that Athena changes Ajax’s mind and makes him believe that a group of life stock was his warrior members and so he kills all the livestock. Upon ajax killing the livestock and torturing one of the animals he thought was Odysseus he is asked by Athena what he plans to do to his enemy which is Odysseus for winning the armor. Ajax responds by saying “I’ll whip his back-blood red. Then I’ll kill him” (Ajax 12) meaning that ajax was planning to torture and kill Odysseus to get revenge on him because he got Achilles armor. Ajax torturing an animal because he thought it was his enemy is similar to “how to tell a true war story” because O Brien tells a story that contains some gruesome act of violence towards a baby water buffalo by shooting and torturing it eventually killing it. According to O Brien this story was not so you can feel bad for the buffalo but understand that there was a deeper meaning behind that act which was that rat Kiley was coping with the loss of his best friend and he wanted to let go of his emotions by means of shooting in this case a buffalo. The same goes with ajax O Brien would say that this story is not
At this point and towards the end, Sophocles ajax contradicts O Brien idea that a true war story “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue” (Brien 1) because Odysseus knowing that ajax was planning to kill him he wanted to do the right thing and that is to bury ajax. Odysseus says “This man (ajax) became my greatest enemy in all our army on that very day I beat him for the armor of Achilles. But for all the man’s hostility to me, I would not disgrace hi. Nor would I deny that in my view he was the finest warrior among the Argive men who came to troy, after Achilles.” (ajax 65) this shows that even though ajax did what he did, there was always a good side to him and to honor that side and not judge him for what he