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The Iliad deals primarily with human relationships. There is a preoccupation with life and death, pride, love (in its many guises) and honour and these traits are all shown through the interactions between the characters. One aspect of the relationships on offer in the work, which it is essential that we bear in mind, is the fact that the perspective is a wholly male one. Women, whether presented as peripheral to the story (as in the Iliad) or as essential to it (as in the Odyssey) are largely symbolic in Homers works and the society of the epics does not depict any one period or group of women due to it's method of construction. When exploring the nature of the mother-son relationship in the world of the Iliad we must ask: What role does the mother take in her son's life? What is her attitude towards her son?
What is the son's attitude to his mother and to her role? Why is she depicted the way she is? To what extent does a woman have power in this role or, perhaps more specifically, is the mother-son relationship perceived as very significant or important? We could also ask how motherhood in this context fits in to the Homeric society. The Iliad's main mother-son pairings are Thetis and Achilles and Hector and Hecuba.
Though there are others who are interesting, for example the character of Andromache in her role as mother of Astanyax. There are definite male and female spheres of life in the Iliad, it is, after all, an epic war story and war is seen as the concern of men. There are many explicit references to motherhood in the form of similes for example when Agamemnon is injured in battle his pain is said to come: "As the sharp sorrow of pain descends on a woman in labour, the bitterness that the hard spirits of childbirth bring on" This suggests that in Homers world child bearing is a womans duty to society just as fighting a war is a mans and reinforces the fact that Homer accepts that women are important but that this is not an epic in which they should or would be involved. They are the wives or mothers of warriors, not the warriors themselves, Andromache's place in the world is defined by her relationships with men, and she is helpless without Hector "For me it would be far better to sink into the earth when I have lost you: for there is no other consolation for me after you have gone to your destiny, only grief; since I have no father, no honoured mother. " She defines herself as wife of Hector, mother of Astanyax. Her son is all she has left of Hector when he dies but her lamentation speech after Hector is dead makes one feel that a mother is seen as below a father, she speaks of Astanyax being beaten by children whose parents are living, they shout "Get out, you! Your father is not dining among us." She also talks of how her son will have to suffer with the loss of luxury and love.
Although Andromache's mother is said to have had matriarchal power in Thebes it seems that she herself is not the partner who is in control, this seems to be linked to her marriage to Hector being patrilocal. Andromache's concern for her son's future and deep emotion are indicative of how the epics present mothers, always seeking to guide and aid their sons, terrified of what lies ahead for them. This applies especially accurately to the relationship between Achilles and his mother Thetis. Her powers extend further than that of the average mother in that she is a sea goddess, as such she could be seen as expressing the lengths to which a less powerful mother would go if she were able.
I would consider this the most important mother-son relationship of the Iliad. Thetis as a Nereid, who is afraid of mortality, is tremendously over protective of her son, Achilles. She shows great bitterness at the choice that was given him: "Your birth was bitterness. Why did I raise you?
If only you could sit by your ships untroubled, not weeping, since indeed your lifetime is to be short, of no length. Now it has befallen that your life must be brief and bitter beyond all men's. To a bad destiny I bore you in my chambers. " Achilles' mother gives him knowledge absent from most heroes' dealings with their mothers, she has told him his destiny. This is one of her main functions in the story, she heightens the emotions through telling the audience that Achilles is to die gloriously, this is all the more emotive when it comes from his mother who, though she knows what will happen, has had to accept her son's choice. Homer uses her as a tool in book eighteen to hint that this will be the book when Achilles will decide to rejoin the fight.
She laments again of her son's fate as she recognises the turning point that Patroklos' death will be in Achilles' life. Achilles' attitude to his mother is shown as one of pity later on when he says: "I wish you had gone on living then with the other sea goddesses of the sea, and that Peleus had married some mortal woman. As it is, there must be in your heart a numberless sorrow for your son's death, since you can never again receive him home again to his country. " This passage shows much understanding between the pair through their mutual sorrow, Thetis for her son and Achilles for his best friend, Patroklos, and for himself. Thetis commissions the famous shield of Achilles from Hephaestos. It seems that as soon as Achilles wants to rejoin the fighting she agrees whole-heartedly with him though he does not believe she will and tells her: "Do not hold me back from the fight, though you love me. You will not persuade me. " Thetis replies with enthusiasm that she will not hold him back, she admires his courage and she will aid him in his plan ." This is no cowardly action, to beat aside sudden death from your afflicted companions." There seems to be an implication that she feels she is unable to stand in her son's path in the state he is in, all she can do is try to protect him as best she can.
Indeed, it seems that Thetis inspires Achilles to action after this point as a pose to merely answering to his demands, as shown in the book nineteen: "'Go then and summon into assembly the fighting Achaians, and unsay your anger against Agamemnon, shepherd of the people, and arm at once for fighting, and put your war strength upon you. 's he spoke so and drove the strength of great courage into him" She also comforts her son by preserving his dear friend so as not to let his body rot; "thro...
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Research essay sample on Mother Son Relationship Attitude To His Mother Achilles
