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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 7 page paper explores the tragic relationship between Achilles and his mother Thetis in “The Iliad.” Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVThtAch.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
construct indeed. This paper discusses the relationship in detail. Discussion Thetis first appearance in the poem is in response to Achilles sniveling. He certainly doesnt seem like much of a
hero; he has captured a beautiful girl named Briseis but Agamemnon wants her and sends men to take her away from Achilles (Homer). They do so, at which point Achilles
sits down on the ground and cries, and then calls out to his mother to help him: "Mother! / You gave me life, short as that life will be, /
so at least Olympian Zeus, thundering up on high, should give me honor-but now he gives me nothing. / Atreus son Agamemnon, for all his far-flung kingdoms-- / the man
disgraces me, seizes and keeps my prize, / he tears her away himself!" (I.416-422). There are two things of great importance in this speech: first, that Achilles calls for
his mother to intercede for him with the gods; and second, that he knows his life will be short. In her work on the classics, Laura Slatkin suggests that the
poem "uses Thetis to view Achilles life from a cosmic perspective that enhances its stature as it throws into relief its brevity" (Slatkin). Achilles is well aware that he is
mortal and that his life will be brief, and Thetis recognition of his mortality "contrasts sharply with the role shared by Eos and Thetis in the Aethiopis, which emphasized their
sons access to divinity" (Slatkin). In The Iliad, Achilles is established as the "limiting case of human brevity," which makes the contrast with his mother, who is immortal, all the
more striking (Slatkin). However, the purpose of Homer in showing this disparity is not to "value more highly the acquisition of immortality, but to define the boundaries of human life
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