For my Iliad termpaper? :D

Question

I need one more subtopic which is about how influential war was to the people in the book "The Iliad". The notion of masculinity shown in the book was that men who decline the opportunity to be in war is a coward and a disgrace to their kingdom. I have 2 subtopics already which are: Paris' struggle from social expectations and Hector's refusal to hide from the war. I only need one more. :) pls. help me. :)

Answer 1

wow - that's an amazingly good question.  Why don't you do your third subtopic as how war effected the women?  It's indirect in a way and yet much more direct in the results area.  When Achilles was bragging about sacking cities all he spoke of was how he carried off their gold and women.  Briseis was a woman taken from a defeated city and she got handed around pretty liberally.  But in the more philosophical sense - Helen mocks Paris to Hector (after she's slept with Paris - after she also mocked him - Aphrodite had to intervene on that one) stating that basically it would have been better if she'd loved someone like Hector that would fight instead of someone like Paris that hid from battle.  She draws her status from the bravery and glory of the man she has allied herself with and in this case believes she's become belittled.  Even Briseis depends upon Achilles to protect her from exactly the fate she is given over to because in becoming his slave she drew a certain amount of protection and safety from his name and reputation.   Also - the men of Troy are fighting (at least as far as Hector is concerned) to protect their women - and in a twisted way, the Greeks are fighting for those women as well - in winning the women will become plunder to the invaders and are seen as loot and valuable in that way (gold and women - it was equated the same in terms of plunder - how's you like to be considered nothing but a gold cup to be used and shown off as a mark of some man's stature?).  Andromache states to Hector what happens to her child if his protector(his father) dies and Hector is aware of what will happen to Andromache should he die and the city fall (book VI).  Meleager's wife gets him all hopped up and ready to fight again by telling him the same type of thing (book IX).  Its a double pronged situation - a woman draws her safety and her status from the men in her life and yet the men in her life risk abandoning her each time they go out and fulfill that safety and earn that status.  That should be enough to fill up a few pages of report ;)

and, if you need some extra pages throw in terms and descriptives of words like aidos, kleos, kudos and time.  Long accent line over the o in aidos and the e in time.  The Nature and Culture in the Iliad by James M Redfield is an excellent book to skim through if you need some college level depth to your paper.  Anyway, good luck.  Hope its a knock out paper!

Answer 2

Yeah, talk about the role of bride-stealing or woman-stealing.

According to Herodotus, who gets it from the Persians, that's what got it all started - the Phonecians stole Io, and then the Greeks stole Europa and Medea, and then the Trojans retaliated by kidnapping Helen.

Plus there's a lot of woman-stealing in the Illiad - Chryseis and Briseis on top of Helen.

Or you could talk about the importance of war-honor, the motivation for Achilles, and the reason for the 'aristia's' showing warriors skill in battle in the poem. The importance of the proper division of both booty and recognition and how that effected politics on both sides.