Petersen, Malouf And Homer Entail Honor

Ideas at the crux of the works by Petersen, Malouf and Homer entail honour, pride, rage and grief. All of the concepts can be identified and explored further with connotations to personal, cultural and social aspects in the film, story and epic poem.
Honour can be comprehended as a paramount concern within the times of Achilles and Hector The archaic belief that fighting for king and country is a great honour is one that is still significant today. Homer, Petersen and Malouf question whether this blind faith in honour is ‘right’ and explores the need for warriors / soldiers to be more politically aware of the reasons for such acts as war. Paris, for example, doesn’t like to fight, and correspondingly receives the scorn of both his family and
In Achilles attempt to avenge Patroclus’s death, he faces Hector and fuelled by the rage within him, he continues to mutilate Hectors body behind a chariot causing great distress within Troy and with the gods. The gods are spoken about in more depth and detail by Malouf in Ransom, yet left out by Petersen in the film Troy. In book XXIV, Apollo pity’s Hector even in death and wraps his body in “the golden shield of storm” to protect his body, however we are shown Hectors damaged body in Troy. Homer writes from the perspective of the gods and this leads us to see the extended picture behind the film but also question why Petersen has left this aspect out. Camera angles can be explored to set the “battle field” as a central “stage” almost as if the gods are watching the events unfold, much like the point of view in book XXIV. The horrors of war are something that Petersen could have wanted to present in this film and create a more realistic experience for the audience. Malouf follows the path of Homer and is challenged with the task of producing work that entails the endeavours of Priam and his challenge to make peace with Achilles who is also still attempting to make peace with the loss of Patroclus. The wrath of Achilles is more predominant in Petersen’s work, however the Iliad shows Achilles being ‘inhuman’ and “barbaric”. This can depict Achilles as more of a “brute” and warrior as compared to a