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Question:

The Iliad..HELP!?

Need help trying writing a paper over this book. It was a bit difficult for me to understand so any help would really be appericated!! This is the questions (below) I need help with.

In the Iliad, the only characters who have a chance at immortality are the Olympian gods, who are imperfect beings. Humans must accept that mortality (i.e, impermanence) is the essential defining hallmark of human life - thus the importance of glory and honor in the epic. Discuss a few examples of how are concepts of glory and honor are depicted in the Iliad and how they are evident.
Do you think that our culture's view of glory and honor is essentially different from or essentially the same as the view portrayed in the Iliad?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Deciphering the question leads to this:
That mortality is glorious and honorable (read: it is honorable to die). So in reality, who dies in the story? Is the death of these characters glorious in the way they die or in the fact that they die for a reason?

Truly, immortality comes from people still talking about you long after you are gone. As long as the memory/spirit of who you were or what you did lives on, then you are immortal. The idea that people still know the names of Odysseus, Ajax, Patrocles, and Agamemnon because we read about their lives (or were SUPPOSED to have read about their lives - BTW, just own up to not reading instead of saying, "confused by it" - you'll get better answers) makes these men immortal; they fought for a cause that helped define who we, as a culture, are today, so they are heroes.

The man who invented lemonaide is not immotral because we don't talk about him, but we do talk about people who die for their beliefs and heroics. We talk about people like Todd Beamer, the man who said "Let's Roll" aboard Flight 93 that was on it's way to crash into the White House on September 11. He died a hero because he did what was necessary, gave up his life, so that the lives of others, and maybe even a national leader and symbol, could be spared.