The Iliad of Homer, showed women as being items of exchange for the men who had possessed them. They are shown in their social roles as mothers and wives. He states stereotypical characterizations of them. The reader understands that women are being treated as prizes, and that the male hero has to win or he’d have to resist fulfilling his heroic destiny. The characters of Hera and Athena, who are among the immortals, they are certainly strong women. Hera is the wife of Zeus and queen of the Olympians. She tricked her husband so that she is able to play with in the affairs of the Trojan War.
The goddess of wisdom, and war, Athena attacked Ares two different occasions and still had to have him flee to Mount Olympus in defeat. In the lliad, there isn’t a large amount of mortal women. The primary role they have is to support their men while at war husbands, fathers, brothers, and to showcase the invulnerability and fallibility of their men. The mortal men are fighting in a war with their lives at stake. Helen who confesses to Paris, her true feelings about him, was eager to abduct her, and not engage in the war.
The wife of Hector, Andromache, has been trying to persuade her husband to have some sympathy on their son. The baby boy will grow up fatherless, and she’d become a widow if he continues to battle. Hecuba, is his mother, she grieved deeply during the death, and she feels that awaits her son. She encouraged him to fight with the army rather than face Achilles. There are many different types of women are represented in The Iliad. Briseis, was described as a damsel in distress type of woman. Women who are wicked and vengeful are the cause the downfall to the male hero.
Yet, there are also women who are treated as possessions or some women who have very little or no control over their destinies. The lliad generally regarded as a male dominated world. Which centrally focuses on the rage between men but this rage is affected, initiated, and inspired by a woman. Chryseis and Briseis, who are considered as the war prizes. They are captured maidens, who have little control over their destinies in life. The major conflicts in Book 1 were due to some conflicts with two women. Chryseis had to return to his father to try to stop the plague by Apollo.
Agamemnon had demanded in exchange, Briseis as a war prize. Achilles didn’t agree with this arrangement, which angered him. After the incident, Achilles agrees to withdraw from the battle. He had left the Achaean army, against the Trojans. Most of the women in the epic play the role of the partner to the male hero. Like Helen of Troy to Paris and Andromache to Hector. Yet, they don’t have the power to dominate over their lovers. At times, the characters are used by Homer to represent a much more human side to the male characters.
He shows how Paris is vulnerable with Helen, and how Hector is a sympathetic husband, and a heroic father to his son as well. Women characters in the poem can be the women gods. They have had too much control and power over the mortals and other gods. In the epic, Hera is presented as a strong character; she’s so dominant that she ends up tricking Zeus. Athena was contributing wisdom and skills, which are able to inspire Achaean warriors. Aphrodite helps Paris, she sends him Helen in Book III. It was the cause of a lot of conflicts to occur.
Each of these women are considered to have powerful forces in the book. The decisions and their control over mortal affairs, at times might change the plot of the story. Conflicts and action might occur awhile they have control. The women can be power, and dominant in the form of god’s, or they’d play the part of a damsel in distress in the mortal world. Throughout the epic, the deeds of men have more of a greater affect. The mortal women are protected from the indecent world, by the heroic men. In the Iliad women serve a greater role in civilizing the men.
Which advances the plot, and at times they play roles in which they encourage men into action, without the men knowing it. The behavior of Agamemnon and Achilles in the first book is unconscionable. These men, both are obsessing over there images as heroic warriors. That they end up bring upon themselves tragedies, dragging the rest of the Greeks into it. The way they treated women, as if they weren’t humans but rather as being an image of their own status and accomplishment. This quote is when Agamemnon spoke to the prophet who had insisted that to give back Chryseis,
