Friday, December 27, 2019

Homers Relationship With Paris And Aphrodite - 1737 Words

Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships. In Homer’s epic poem, Iliad, he describes Helen of Troy as the most beautiful woman in the world. The introduction of the Iliad states that when Paris steals Helen from her husband Menelaus, a Greek Chieftain, the Achaeans band together and cross the Aegean Sea to wage war against Troy, a gracious, prosperous city in Asia Minor. Their motive is revenge . After fighting for nine years in a land that is not their own, the Greeks miss â€Å"the rich fields and glorious feasts that supposedly make combat worth-while. Both sides have trouble remembering why they are fighting in the first place† Under the leadership of Menelaus’s brother Agamemnon, the Greeks fight around Troy for ten years†¦show more content†¦In each of the three examples listed above the young women are beautiful, they are presented by their creators as vixens who use their siren ways to entice and entrap men into their seductive webs. Eventually each man falls victim to the seductress, living the rest of their days a ruined man. This is how it is presented to the audience, but is this what really happens? Like Helen, these three characters are in fact, victims of society and the men they seduce. Helen is the daughter of Zeus, prized for her beauty. Throughout the span of history she is that by which all female beauty is measured. Her beauty is not subjective but rather absolute. She is the only female in history who can rally an entire army’s response and hold them in battle for over ten years just to bring her home. Her iconic image that spans all of history has been twisted into something very different than what was presented by Homer in the Iliad. Hellen is exploited by the men who worship her, and the gods that favor her. In order to fully understand the relationship between Paris and Helen, the reader must first understand the relationship between Paris and Aphrodite. Athena and Hera are on the side of the Greeks while Aphrodite favors the Trojans. This is because of a dispute between the three about who was most beautiful. Paris, who was judge in the beauty contest, choseShow MoreRelated Expression of Self-worth in Homer’s Iliad1400 Words   |  6 PagesExpression of Self-worth in Homer’s Iliad The story of the Trojan War as played out in the Iliad is perhaps most gripping for the focus on the role of the individual; the soul is struck by the very concept of a decade-long war and a city-state razed to the ground for one man’s crime and one woman’s beauty. As such, the dynamic between Helen, Paris, and the Trojan people they have doomed is a fascinating one. For while Prince Paris is hated by all of Troy, his right to keep Helen is challengedRead MoreEssay on A Review of the Movie Troy808 Words   |  4 Pagesthe movie Troy is a movie for Hollywood that is sure to be a box office hit. 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