'Compare and Contrast Iliad vs. Odessey Essay\r'

'The Iliad begins with Chryses, a prophet of Apollo, coming to a Greek camp and offering valuable â€Å" penalisation tokens” requesting the bring round of his daughter who the Greeks had captured in a raid. Because Agamemnon believed she was rightfully his, he refused. Most of his sonny boy Greeks wanted him to return her in methodicalness to avoid conflict. In order to defend his clip (honor, prize, value), Agamemnon brings d kindle to them both(prenominal). Chryses prays to Apollo and a pestis is released upon the Achaeans. Achilles, a basileus in the Greek army, suggests seeking cortical potential from the prophet Calchas. Upon doing so all are informed that Agamemnon is responsible for the chivy because he refused to return his geras (prize), the daughter of Chryses.\r\nIn order to preserve his time and mollify the burden of the plague, Agamemnon decides to take someone else’s geras. He threatens to takes Achillesgeraand this hurl the destructive anger of Achilles â€Å"sing”. However, A soa intercedes and causes him to restrain himself. Agamemnon’s work force seize hisgera, Briseis, and Achilles refuses to fight. Needing him for a prosperous battle, they offer him his gera and more, provided he refuses. His exasperation is kindled against Agamemnon. Achilles rejects the system upon which heroic gloss was built. Because he receives his time from Zeus, he doesn’t care what mess think.\r\nUpon sense of hearing near the death of his companion Patroclus, Achilles attacks the Trojan forces and kills Hector, Patroclus’s killer. He drags his body behind his transport for days wishing he would thrust fought sooner and pr thus farted the death of his friend. When Priam, Hectors father comes to r to each one with Achilles, they celebrate a mutual respect for the lives lost and for each other and they make peace. Hector is buried and the city allay stands.\r\nThe Odyssey opens with Zeus reflecting on m ortal affairs. He spoke among the deathless ones about the insaneness that mortals suffer by their own hands. Aegisthus, full cousin of Agamemnon committed adultery with Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, and then helped her to murder Agamemnon. He went on to justify how Orestes, son of Agamemnon, then killed Aegisthus and his mother to vindicate his father’s death and how this all could have been avoided if he would have taken the warning that Hermes gave him before all this happened to marrow and abstained from adultery. Yet, mortals blame the gods for all evil, â€Å"when really it’s through their own folly they suffer, even more than necessary.”\r\nthence Athena rises in the divine assembly and requests that the righteous Odysseus is released from irons on the island of Calypso. Zeus then sends Hermes to cast him free. The story focus’s on Odysseus who escapes from the island and flat solids upon the sea in a raft. but his enemy Poseido n, as the story attests, causes a storm that destroys the raft and makes Odysseus swim for cardinal days until he lands on the island of Phaeacia, where poove Alcinous rules. The virgin princess Nausicaa meets him on shore and takes him to the palace. afterwards revealing his identity, Odysseus recounts his wanderings to the Phaeacians.\r\n aft(prenominal) leaving Troy, he and his hands, with twenty boats, came to the land of Thracians and lost numerous men in a raid. After departing, a storm takes them to the land of the genus Lotus Eater. If anyone eats the lotus, they will forget their purpose, to go home again. Then Odysseus comes to the land of the daphnia where many of his men are eaten alert and he is imprisoned in a cave. Odysseus tricks the Cyclops and escapes.\r\nHe then comes to the island of Circe, â€Å"hawk.” Then Odysseus gains the respect of the witch Circe with the help of Hermes and him and his men enjoy a year on the island. Then Circe tells him that he must chaffer the spirit of the prophet Tiresias to learn what awaits him. He sails away and speaks with spirits. The spirit of the murdered Agamemnon praises Odysseus’ wife genus Penelope for being faithful and warns Odysseus to watch out of women when returning home.\r\nTraveling on, they pass by the island of the Sirens, whose seduce men with their song. Odysseus prevents his men from hearing their song and they make it past. Next, he passes by the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Five men are eaten, and the rest go to the island of Helios Hyperion, the sun. Circe warned him non to eat the cattle but they did anyway. When they sail away, Zeus destroys their boat to punish their impiety. Odysseus wholly escapes. He finally comes to the island of Calypso, where the story began.\r\nIn the text, â€Å"The Greeks, History, Culture and Society,” authors Morris and Powell compare and contrast the Iliad and the Odyssey as such, â€Å"The remarkable Odysse y…has a tripartite plot, but moves more in spirals than in a straight line. Whereas the Iliad describes a man at odds with his society, a man apart, the Odyssey describes a man who journeys far, suffers much then returns to his prudish place in society…the Iliad is tragic, the Odyssey is absurd [meaning the story ends in harmony and acceptance].”\r\nIn the Iliad, people die in combat, oft times sizeable men against honorable men. Morals are a major theme expressed in the Iliad. Upholding a state of honesty, restraint, discipline, honor, and respect are all-important(a) characteristics that are sought for. The Odyssey bundles with Odysseus striving to return home and the morals of mortals are critiqued by Zeus. While Achilles challenges his commander Agamemnon and abhors devious doings, Odysseus uses fraud to survive and overcome obstacles.\r\nThe Iliad and the Odyssey compliment each other by telling dickens different stories that both give away insight into the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse, the funeral of Achilles, and the return of Menelaus and Helen to Sparta. They both deal with the jumbles and hardship of mortal life. The justice of women is praised in these stories. Nausicaa is an honored virgin princess and Penelope is known and respected as a virtuous woman who staves off lewd men seeking to sleep with her, turn Clytemnestra dishonors her husband and dishonors herself by committing adultery.\r\nThey both deal with the gods interceding in human affairs. Human behavior is portrayed in both stories on with the challenges of life. The mortals in both stories have to struggle against fear, anger, and other ego-based dimensions of human existence. Both stories give us insight into the minds of the inhabitants of the earth during this time period and their perception of reality. The reality of the â€Å"gods”, unearthly beings, was common knowledge for most people during this time. Today, the existence of the gods is dismissed by most, questioned by many, and known by few. Reality, as they perceived it, was similar in many ways as it is today, but it was also in truth different. Both stories help up us reflect and gain a deeper concord of life in ancient Greece.\r\n'