Shahrazad is an impressive character found within the Thousand and One Nights. She devises a clever plan to marry King Shahrayar in an effort to save her live and those of her fellow women. King Shahrayar has a ritual of marrying a woman and then killing her the next day. The reason for King Shahrayar having such a ritual is due to his first wife’s infidelity. This led him to mistrust all women and seek revenge upon them. Shahrazad is a woman full of knowledge and wit who uses this tool compel a plan. The plan includes her urging her father to marry her off to King Shahrazad. “I would like you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving the people or perish and die like the rest”(562). This is a courage’s act by Shahrazad because it could led to her death should her plan fail. She also has her sister assist her with her plan. The plan is to tell the king a story built up his curiosity to the extent of him wanting to learn more. This process extended her life a day at a time and also allowed her to teach the king valuable lessons. Shahrazad plan worked it forced King Shahrayar to grant her indefinite life. King Shahrayar learned about his soul and how to rule his kingdom better. Shahrazad proves that with knowledge and wit anyone can be outsmarted.

“The heroic code” in the Iliad leads characters to make important decisions. The heroic code is a set of principles based in honor. Achilles feels dishonored by Agamemnon because Agamemnon took his prize of war “Briseis”. Achilles states “Nothing is worth my life” , he declares, since prizes of honor can always be replaced but “a man’s life cannot be won back” (Homer I. 225). Honor is gained in threatening activities such as battle and determined by the possession that acquires.

Hector is the most human of the characters. Even though heroes are in death situations in which is kill or be killed. Hector, the Trojan hero, make his decision in going to fight to protect his wife and son. If he decides not going to fight he will look like a coward. Hector answered to his wife Andromache: “Yes, Andromache, I worry about all this myself, But my shame before the Trojans and their wives, With their long robes trailing, would be too terrible If I hung back from battle like a coward.” (The Iliad, Book VI. 463-466).  Instead he thinks that in going to fight he will give his family a recognition of his heroic action. Hector knows he is not coming back alive but for him honor is what makes him alive.