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Hero / Villain in The Iliad The concepts of villain and hero clearly originate in Judeo-Christian tradition, in contemporary sense of these terms. According to this tradition, evildoers are thought to have a certain abnormal psychological traits that enable them to defy morals, in order to reach their objectives. Those who perpetrate crimes are considered as having their evilness attributed to them at all times. On the opposite pole of the moral spectrum we have heroes the individuals of good moral character that are capable of standing up against evil.
The popular perception of them rejects any possibility that heroes can have any evil psychological traits, even though that theyre often required to use an excessive violence, as the ultimate mean for dealing with dark forces. Still, ancient Greeks and Romans, before the advent of Christianity, were totally deprived of bi-polar worldview, which characterizes Western culture nowadays. Their realm consisted of good and evil being organically integrated in each other, therefore their literature and mythology gives us many examples of characters, which are heroes and villains at the same time. This is one of the reasons why ancient Greek drama and literature are still considered as very realistic. They portray individuals, whose actions are being emotionally motivated most of the time just like in real life. The epical hero in classical Greek literature doesnt follow the behavioral pattern, like it does in contemporary Hollywood movies that are given prizes for being the worst movie of the year.
Therefore, its quite hard to find in Homers Iliad the character, who would fit into classical description of villain or hero. We will analyze the personage of Achilles, as the most representative of all double agents in this poem. The events described in Iliad take place during the siege of Troy. Achaeans were trying to sack this city for nine years and, it seems like, its only going to take them another final effort that will cause Troy to surrender.
They captured another city, which was allied with Troy Choose. The two great leaders of Achaeans, Agamemnon and Achilles, take into captivity a pair of beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis. Yet, after Cryseiss farther prays Apollo to punish Achaeans, attackers begin to suffer from plague. It causes Agamemnon to give away Crisis and to demand from Achilles that he replaces her with Brieseis It is not by pure accident that author introduces Achilles to us under such circumstances. He wants to show him as a man of honor, who gets insulted over unfair demands. In ancient mind, honor was the most valued mans possession and it had to be defended at all times, yet there was even greater cause to fight and to die for ones fatherland.
Achilles reply to Agamemnon's claim is a reply of a true hero, whos willing to sacrifice for the sake of common good: Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, And suffer, rather than my people fall. The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, So dearly valued, and so justly mine. But since for common good I yield the fair, My private loss let grateful Greece repair (The Iliad, Book 1, 14). Nevertheless, as times passes, Achilles begins to feel revengeful. He tries to contend this feeling for a while, but finally becomes overwhelmed with it. This leads him to the act of ultimate betrayal, when he refuses to fight for Achaeans.
Furthermore, he asks his mother sea-nymph Thetis, to convince Zeus to help Trojans, so that Achaeans would sustain an ultimate defeat. In his mind, this would make them to ask for his forgiveness This episode shows Achilles as classic villain, who would go as far as betraying his country, in order to prove its personal value to his former friends. The popular perception of villain implies the possession of big ego. The numerous Hollywood's evil scientists often have no other purpose for perpetrating mischief, other then to become famous From this time on, reader is being kept in suspense by the fact that the end of the poem can be hardly predicted, since its main character shows as much inclination towards good, as he does towards the evil. As poem progresses, we realize that the reason for Achilles to act in two opposite modes, is that despite the fact that he appears to be very manly, he nevertheless is ruled by emotions. Everything depends on whether hes going to be able to stand up against its own weaknesses, when itll come to the decisive moment of truth.
After his best friend Patroclus gets killed in the battle, Achilles becomes enraged and it allows him to forget about his insulted ego. He decides to rejoin the battle. The other reason that caused him to do this was his guilty conciseness. Achilles simply cant observe his comrades being killed, knowing that it wont do any good, since he stays out of fight. Here we get to see another heros psychological trait in the character of Achilles hes the bravest warrior on the battlefield. Being driven by burning desire to revenge his friends death, he goes as far as confronting river-God Xanthus, who wanted Achilles to stop killing people, because too many corpses were falling in his rivers, causing them to clog: Mark how resistless through the floods he goes, And boldly bids the warring gods be foes And on the chief descends amain, Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain.
Then, murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves, And a foam whitens on the purple waves: At every step, before Achilles stood The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood (The Iliad, Book 21, 231). Although, Achilles spills a lot of blood, while fighting the river and his enemies, he hardly acts as a villain, because at this moment hes totally deprived of any cowardice. Killing enemies in combat is not the same as killing defenseless people There is always a temptation to depict war as something ultimately evil, especially in modern times, when universal peace and tolerance are expected to replace wars, once and for all. Yet, it is also a fact that war has served as inspiration for great many masterpieces in the fields of art, science and literature. Even the embodiment of evil himself, Hitler, has never been doubted of performing his soldiers duty in most honorable manner, during the World War One. In this respect, Achilles shows a lot of similarity with crazy Adolph.
He proves himself of being able to courageously fight for the cause, yet at the same time, he never gets stopped by any moral considerations, when it comes to committing atrocities. Just before Patroclus funeral, Achilles sacrifices the lives of twelve Trojan captives, so that his friend enters the kingdom of dead as a great warrior: Then last of all, and horrible to tell, Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell. On these the rage of fire victorious preys, Involves and joins them in one common blaze (The Iliad, Book 23, 249). Killing war prisoners is considered to be a horrible atrocity, even in our time. But it would be a one-sided approach if we were to analyze historical figure or epical character from position of conventional morality.
Russian Czar Peter the Great used to personally participate in mass executions of his enemies. He never felt any pity towards the people, but he also never felt any pity for himself and he died because of pneumonia, which he contracted while pulling his friend out of icy water in winter. Majority of Russians think of him as a great hero It appears that there is a really thin line between villain and the hero, just as it is between genius and psychopath. Yet, only such combination of seemingly opposite psychological traits, allows individual to go down in history. Although, Achilles is a fictional character, there is an unmistakable historical aura around him, not because he participated in events that took place long ago, but because his act resembles the act of many real historical figures. I think, it is much appropriate to evaluate Achilles from historical point of view, rather then applying to him our understanding of what is moral and what is not.
There is only one principle of doing this we need to answer whether his actions contributed towards wining the war by Greeks or not. If we take this approach, itll appear that he has not only greatly helped his countrymen, but also there wouldnt be final Achaean victory, hadnt he fought on their side. Thats why, although Homer tells us about Achilles many doubtful traits of his character, he nevertheless, is far from judging him. Quite contrary Achilles is being praised as great hero. Iliad the ultimate expression of ancient spirit, which we still use as a standard while assessing the cultural legacy of our own Western civilization. The same spirit can be found in Icelandic sagas the motives of courage, sacrifice and idealism dominate both masterpieces.
Many historians suggest that ancient Achaeans came to Greece from Scandinavia. According to Nordic tradition, the notion of ultimate evil is attributed to petty human weaknesses. Homers Achilles is susceptible to them, like any other person, yet in the end he overcomes them. His victory on the battlefield corresponds to the victory over his own weaknesses, within himself. This defines him as epical hero, whose actions can be used as base for narrative, but not for drawing ethical conclusions. We can say that Achaean greatest warrior is nothing but the ancient version of Nietzschean Zarathustra the child, in transition through man to the lion.
Achilles is villain and hero at the same time, which makes him a truly universal character. Bibliography: Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Pope. A. (1899). University of Chicago. 1951.
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