Wen Blog Post #1

Jean Auguste-Dominique 1801 umich.edu

Book IX of Iliad began with Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans drown in the deep fear of Trojan Army’s further attack. As an effort to prevent Trojans to burn down Greek’s ships, Agamemnon sent Nestor and Phoenix as ambassadors to Myrmidon to persuade Achilles to help Greek in danger. The outcome of the Agamemnon’s strong desire to persuade Achilles was a failure as Achilles rejected his offers without any hesitation. Achilles’s response to Odysseus’s persuasion was well portrayed by the author. Homer made a great deal of literary choices to make Achilles’s indelible anger and unwillingness to fight the war a compelling part for the readers.

Homer made Achilles’s anger toward Agamemnon an observable part of the conversation. Achilles’s response to the embassy addressed entirely from his own point of view helped readers to associate with Achilles’s anger. Achilles used some harsh words such as “shameless bastard” and “dogface” to describe what Agamemnon did to him. While this helped reader to feel Achilles’s rage, it simultaneously turned down the possibility of acceptance of Greek’s offer. Achilles’s following statements showed an intense emotional development. He belittled Agamemnon and asserted “His gifts mean nothing to me”(line 389). He added that even if the gifts were “as numberless as grains of sand or dust”(line 398), he still won’t change his mind. Moreover, Achilles claimed he wouldn’t marry daughters of Agamemnon, even if they were as “lovely as Golden Aphrodite” or “weave like owl-eyed Athena”(line 403-404). These all together created an aggressive and agitated tone.

Besides Achilles’s anger, his unwillingness to fight the war was also made obvious to the readers. He came up with a shocking statement that the reward for coward and hero stayed the same (line 325-326). This statement seemed to be a close metaphor of himself and Agamemnon, as if he was the hero who fought to death for Greek; but Agamemnon, a coward who was sitting behind the war eventually got much more prizes than Achilles did. He further used a bird and her chicks to imply his relationship with Agamemnon (line 330-331). He fought for Agamemnon, like a mother bird that sought everywhere for food for her little chicks. However, when he won the war, he got nothing in return like a bird that risked its life to find food for its chicks but ended up with nothing for herself. Homer’s use of metaphor demonstrated Achilles’s position in an indirect but obvious way.