Achilles self absorption
Achilles is "godlike self-absorption", the hyper-violent hero of Homer's Iliad. Now I understand all about ancient ideas of honor and such, but let's face it: if Achilles were alive today, we'd want him in jail faster than someone could say "homicidal maniac." - Unless we needed him. Anyway, our friend Achilles lacked perspective. While most of us would consider "godlike" and "self-absorbed" to be contradictory ideas, this isn't a Buddha, Mohammed, or Yahweh; these are the Olympians, history's very first dysfunctional family. The gods are petty, conniving, violent, philandering liars, but still, they are gods, and as such, they demand respect. They do not learn moral lessons. They do not seek enlightenment. They do not honor their inner-child; they are their inner-child. They pursue their self-interests as well as they can in a more or less amoral manner, as a scholar would pretty much expect of any overly self-involved all-powerful being. Their timeless nature deprives them of their dignity. How can anything ever be really serious to someone who is destined to go on living for eternity? Achilles is confused. He is the product of a mixed marriage, mortal and immortal, and never got the counseling he needed to make
Thetis, his overindulgent sea nymph of a mother, doesn't help. Patroklos' death confronts Achilles with the inevitability of mortality so that he has neither room for nor means of evasion. As Hector butchers the Danaan army, Achilles spurns a reconciliation offer delivered by three of his oldest aquaintances. To conclude, with his extreme self delusion, he obsesses about death, blood, and the murder of Hector. His grand "Speilburg-type" entrance blows his image even more out of proportion that it already was, and it only multiplies his extreme self absorption. Although the king attempts to draw Achilles back into the fighting, he offers no apology to the warrior, for that would be to prideless a thing to do.
Common topics in this essay:
Patroklos Achilles,
Zeus Trojan,
Yahweh Olympians,
Achilles Agamemnon,
Achilles Achilles,
Homer's Iliad,
Unless Anyway,
,
patroklos fight,
extreme self,
godlike self-absorption,
self absorption,
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Acceptance Essays
