A BRIEF COMPARISION OF TROY AND ILIAD
Throughout the history, the place of men and women in the social life has been on a pendular balance. Sometimes idolized ones were men and sometimes women. Looking at the Ancient Greece, our guide is the first-time writer of the Greek Epics Iliad and Odyssey, Homer. Using his words as a reference for the life at times around the War of Troy, the film “Troy” was made by Wolfgang Petersen in year 2004.
Thinking about the life of the ancient Troy and other Greek cities, the women is pictured to be in many aspects of life both in Iliad and Troy. In Homer’s epic Iliad, women are very important, having many roles in the community as there are major goddesses and minor goddesses and female creatures that could be goddesses. There are queens and other lady aristocrats, priestesses, courtesans, servants, and slaves. Some of these are wives, daughters, and other relatives. Some are powerful and others weak. Whereas in the film Troy, the goddess properties of any character is not easily seen, or any other creatures’ but as wives, they are the prize for victors and the ones that need to take care of the children. It’s seen in, for example Hector’s wife is taking care of her baby, loyal to his husband in a very possessive manner. The importance and equivalence of the royal women can be seen from the scenes in the movie where Hector’s wife is greeting the incoming people from the voyage to Sparta, there are many women in the background and the scene where the royal family of Troy is watching the battle between Paris and Menelaus, the King Priam has his two daughters-in-law by him. He is not alone and the background is the same, couples are seen. When it comes to the goddesses, in the epic, Achilleus’ mother, Thetis is told to be a goddess but in the film, this is only slightly understood by her words “I knew they would come for you. Long before you were born. I knew that they would come. They want you to fight in Troy”. Here this passage can be meant to show her feelings or ability to foresee the events, but also can be perceived as the feelings of a mortal mother.
Another issue is the attitude of men against women. Men see women as their possession in the antic Greece, as shown in the epic Iliad and also the film Troy. Women are prizes of victories in many scenes. It is even asserted that if looked more deeply, it will be seen that much of the story revolves around feminism [1].
“The men of the Iliad are very emotional individuals; however, the emotions they express are consistently anger, pride, and jealousy. Achilleus and Agamemnon jealously argue over Briseis, a war prize that neither man particularly values" says the essay referred with number [2]. This is very well reflected in the film also. Briseis, taken as the slave of Achilleus, is the good representation of the idea that women’s feelings were not taken into consideration when pretty women were slaves, used only as sex slaves for the victors. This is also visible both in the epic and in the film when Hector tells his wife to run away when he is killed, otherwise Agamemnon and Achilleus will enslave her. This is very obvious from the behaviours of two characters. Hector says that his wife will be captured and enslaved if he is killed. It is obvious from the behaviour of Agamemnon and Achilleus that they would make her a slave or maybe a wife in the future. Also, the scene in the movie which Agamemnon is stabbed by Briseis is a very meaningful one. It represents that "important slave" can cause the fall of a king. This means greed for glory, power and everything prepared the ego-centric king Agamemnon’s death, which is different in the Iliad.
One more fact in the epic is that the women, especially Helen of Sparta is given by Aphrodites as a gift to Paris because he named her the most beautiful instead of Hera or Athena. As Frederick John Kluth of Kent, Ohio stresses, Helen is the tool of Aphrodite in Iliad. She is the face that launched a thousand ships and the pride of the Trojans [3]. She was treated more as a stolen possession more than a bride or a wife. In the film, this effect of Aphrodites is also not shown.
When it comes to the relation between Agamemnon and Achilleus, Achilleus and Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, have a dispute between each other that shapes itself in the body of Briseis, the cousin of Prince Hector of Troy. As mentioned before, Briseis is the slave that is taken by Achilleus, later on taken away by Agamemnon, therefore starting a dispute. The text from the movie was as the following: “Today a great victory was won, but this victory is not yours. Kings did not kneel to Achilleus. Kings did not pay homage to Achilleus”. Here Agamemnon tries to show him the position he is to Achilleus, where he also knows that he needs this crafted soldier and his friends. Achilleus is also aware of the fact that he is needed; therefore he can go beyond a normal soldier’s limits and says “Perhaps Kings were too far behind to see. The soldiers won the battle”. This is a clear challenge to Agamemnon’s authority. Letting his forces fight without themselves and loose in a battle, Achilleus tried to show Agamemnon his weakness without him. Both urging for power, glory and wealth, they show a very good example of sensational men of ancient Greece, and maybe of today also.
Another part of Achilleus’ anger is understood from the words told by him in Iliad when complaining to her god mother Thetis, as “Since, my mother, you bore me to be a man with a short life, therefore Zeus of the loud thunder on Olympos should grant me honour at least...” as quoted by James D’Emilio, Ass. Prof. of Humanities, University of Florida [4]. He continues to state that Achilles’ search for this honour comes from his aspire to be as godlike as possible, but he can only compensate this with honour. In fact, this contradiction that he lives inside expands to the entire story as human has always looked for immortality.
Considering the film and the epic, it is possible to tell that the film is more “todayised” than the original epic, Iliad. Many goddesses and gods, and their relations with mortal kings is not shown in the film, meaning that the characters are illustrated as heroic humans, at most. In general, the film and the epic coincide with each other in the aspects of the place of women in the public and in gender relations. What is more, removed parts of the epic Iliad makes the story more clear and understandable for the reader, where the film can only make the audience take a gasp for long battle scenes and is able to give only a little essence of the story that really lies beneath the surface.
REFERENCES
[2].The Role of Women in Homer’s Iliad, Retrieved 20:00, January 5,2007 from http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=8977
[3].Frederick John Kluth, The Role of Women in the Iliad and the Odyssey.Retrieved 14:25, January 5, 2007, from http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:AoSauLP2yNEJ:www.fjkluth.com/ill.html+illiad+women&hl=tr&gl=tr&ct=clnk&cd=1
[4].James D’Emilio, Commentary on the Illiad: Boks One, Two and Three, Retrieved 20:35, January 5, 2007 from http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~demilio/2211unit1/homrlct1.htm
[5].Daily Life from Homer. Retrieved 13:36, January 5, 2007, from http://www.fjkluth.com/daily.html#Dail
[6].Agamemnon. (2007, January 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:42, January 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agamemnon&oldid=99039616