1.The biggest similarities between Hector and Achilles are that they are both the biggest and best warriors within their respected parties.  They are both highly respected leaders within their armies and want them to be the best as well. The differences start occurring when Achilles decides to leave his army after getting in an argument with the leader of of his army. He then goes as far as wishing bad luck upon his own army because he wants to make a glorious comeback and be a big hero.  This behavior kind of went along with his attitude though, as he is a arrogant and cocky type of person.  Hector, on the other hand, just wants whats best for his army and will honestly do anything, it seems, to accomplish that goal.  Hector’s army respected him so much that they followed his every order. When he sent them behind the Trojan wall to protect Troy, he stayed out to fight Achilles one-on-one.  This is where the similarities come back together for when they started fighting, the two realized that they were equal matches for each other.  Their power and skills were equal but they realized one of them was going to have to die.

2.After Achilles killed Hector and defiled Greek laws by dragging the body around and humiliating Hectors name, Achilles found himself in quite the predicament.  He finally seemed to settle down and figure some of his stuff out. During this time he listened to his mom when she said that he had been directed to return Hector’s body to his father so that it can be given a proper burial.  I found it quite smart actually what we learned, in that the government was able to stay in control of its people simply by mentioning words from the “gods” and the people obeyed mostly out of fear and respect for the gods.

3.The Familial Code and The Warrior Code go hand in hand in this instance I believe. For instance, even though Hector would have much rather stayed home with his family, whom he loved a lot, he knew he had to go out and fight for his people.  This shows that the two codes can happen together instead of having to be “one or the other”.  Ultimately, Hector chose to leave his family out of it and chose the battle. The same scenario applied to Achilles.

1. Both Achilles and Hector were the best, strongest, most highly respected soldiers in their respective armies and loved by the gods. Both had a drive to see their armies do best – at least until Achilles decided to leave the army over a spat with the top general. This is where the split in the two mens relationships with their troops begins. Once Achilles leaves, not only does he wish harm on his army (so Agamemnon will see how invaluable his in battle), but the Greeks morale plummets with the loss of their best fighter. When he refuses the Call after his friends try to convince him to fight again, the troops’ morale plummets again and things get really bad for the Greeks. Hector, on the other hand, retains the respect of (and for) his army. Though he dismisses Polydamas’ advice to take the Trojans back behind the wall of Troy and defend the city from the Greeks, the troops follow him eagerly. When the Trojans did eventually go behind the wall, Hector stayed outside to fight Achilles one on one. This is where both men face each other – and it’s almost like they’re fighting themselves. hoth recognize the strength of the other and the fact that one of them is going to die in this standoff.I personally favored Hector a lot more; Achilles was kind a jerk, running off to pout. Hector just wanted to honor his war commitment, win, and go home to his family.

2. After defiling Hector’s body by dragging it back to camp, Achilles takes a break and seems to get his head on straight. Although he’s not exactly repentant, he listens when his mother, Thetis, tells him that Zeus himself has directed that Hector’s body be returned to his father without injury and complies. This communicates a moral lesson – don’t disobey the gods. In Greek society, this would have meant people stayed slightly afraid of the gods, which meant that the government could keep control simply by invoking their names.

3. I really think that both codes are intertwined rather than mutually exclusive. The Honor and Victory code is supported by the Familial code, and the Familial code is upheld by Honor and Victory. Men in Greek times were worth almost nothing – and their families shamed – if they chickened out in battle;but if a man returned home to no wife and children, he had no one to pass his honorable name down to.

1.  Both Achilles and Hector were the best warriors of their nations. Hector the greatest warrior of for the Trojans and is very well thought of by the people of his nation. Hector fights before his beloved wife and kids. Within the battle he makes many costly errors resulting is the death of many warriors behind him. Even though numbers are low he continues to face Achilles. Achilles fighting for the Achaeans seems to have major flaws in his character in turn leading him to be weak when it comes to battle. He basically turns away from his fellow warriors and hopes that they die in battle so he can be the hero. At the end of the war these two great warriors were killed by Ajax. The original plan between Hector and Ajax was to have Achilles killed but turns out Hector didn’t come up with his end of the deal so Ajax had his way with him. One of the main differences between these two great warriors is that they fought for different reasons. Hector was full of love and pride fighting for his people where Achilles was more about personal pride and didn’t have pride in his nation so he fought to the death.

2.  After Achilles berserk episode Priam, Achilles father is the one who brings him back to balance. Achilles delivers Hectors body to his father so that he can forgo a proper burial. Achilles flaws are shown again as his anger problems cycle again. Both sides of the battle lost loved ones that were well known and well liked. The message that we find is that death is everywhere, it happens all around us. The one thing we learn is that one must find a way around the thought of death and see past it and live life to the fullest battle hard like these warriors did. Because one day life will be there for us.

3.  The Warrior Code and The Familial Code are not mutually exclusive. They instead seem to clash. We see this with Hector he is a family man who passionately loves his wife and kids. Without a doubt you can see tell that he would much rather stay with his family during battle to keep them safe. Fighting the war was far more honorable and heroic than the latter. Achilles is in the same boat, instead of staying back with his aging father who he might never see again. Both warriors show a great deal of honor, pride, character and bravery to their respected nations in the action that they took in taking part in battle.

1.What are differences and similarities between Achilles’s relationship with his fellow Achaeans and Hector’s relationship with his fellow Trojans? Outline not only how these two warriors relate to those around them but to each other.
     In the Iliad, Achilles and Hector have many differences along with similarities. To begin with, Achilles (Archaean Army) and Hector (Trojan Army) are both very prominent people in each of their armies. They are very mighty! They both lead their fellow soldiers into battles, whether they are good battles or ones that don’t need to be fought.
Achilles is very full of himself. He is basically just driven for his own glory. He doesn’t care what happens to others, as long as he is happy at the end of it all. He just wants his name to be remembered. He is very strong, with superhuman strength. He has a great relationship with the Gods.
On the other hand, Hector tends to be more driven for himself and those around him. His character seems to run from confrontations at first. Unlike Achilles, he seems to be a bit of a coward. His fellow Trojans are able to walk all over him. They insult him, which in turn brings back his courage. This encourages him to finally stand up to those around him. He has deep love for his family.
In conclusion, even though Achilles and Hector are prominent people in their armies, they have different ways of life. It showed me that there is never a “right’ way to be when it comes to being a leader. Some qualities are great, while others prove not to be. But, at the end of the day, the good and the bad both shine through and give you a sense of who you are.

2. The excerpt from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried gives context for those of you who have not been in battle. It speaks to the breaking down of all known boundaries, such as good and evil, that occurs in war.
   Achilles breaks the Greek standard and religious observance of respect for the dead by dragging Hector’s body around. Even though Hector is his enemy, his acts would have been seen by a B.C. Greek soldier as sacrilege (violation). What is it that brings Achilles back to balance after his berserk episode, and what significance can this transformation have, what does it communicate?
   Tim O’Brien balances out the boundaries within war. He states, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty.’ This is a perfect example of how you can see both the bad and good within the same thing. There’s usually a positive behind every negative. Sometimes, things are truly not as bad as what they appear to be.
   Achilles is brought back to reality when he sees Hector’s father, King Priam, mourning over his son’s body. He asks him to think about his own father and the love between them. I believe that Achilles was just blindsided by the war, that he didn’t think about what he was actually doing. Since he was very self-glory driven, he didn’t consider other individual’s feelings. When seeing King Priam in tears, it touched his heart and made him realize what was happening and what he had done.

3. Achilles spends the first 18 books of the epic Refusing the Call. He even refuses the Embassy’s offer, a scene in which he proclaims an interest in a domestic life. This proclamation is interesting when compared to the circumstances of Hector in Book 22 when, as we he waits for Achilles to arrive for the final battle he knows he will ever fight, his father Priam and his mother Hecuba call to him from the gates of Troy. This scenes speaks to the inner-tug these warriors feel between two distinct codes of behavior: 1. The Warrior Code and 2. The Familial Code. The first code is dependent upon Honor and and Victory; the second on responsibility for offspring and spouse. Are these two codes mutually exclusive? Why or why not?
   The Warrier Code and the Familial Code are not mutually exclusive. One is not caused by the other. They are at different ends of the spectrum. Within the Familial Code, the family must be taken care of. It doesn’t need to involve the warrior code. For instance, Hector was very family driven. However, he drew a line between his family and his battles. He didn’t intertwine them. Hector didn’t have a choice, he couldn’t just pick between the two. Achilles also choose the battles over his family.

Achilles and Hector both have entirely different relationships with their fellow countrymen than the other. Hector’s relationships tend to have a smooth unity to them thought the story. He only seems to ever face conflict from either fellow soldiers calling him back to battle or his own family wishing him to stop fighting. This allows the relationships that Hector has to be one of the his major sources of strength in the story and one of his main drives to fight.

In contrast Achilles’s relationships with his fellow Achaeans seem to be a hodgepodge of close friends and hated allies. With a large part of the relationship that Achilles has with these people seeming highly dependent upon how Achilles status is perceived. Causing Achilles to take actions that force the Achaeans to continue to rely on him like asking his mother to talk to Zeus about flipping the direction of the war. Which shows that the dependence of the relationship is felt on both sides.

Hector and Achilles seem to have a very indirect relationship. They both rarely seem to mention one another beyond a few passing lines but both regard the other as a significant part of the war. Achilles seeing Hector as the only challenge that the war may offer him. While Hector sees Achilles as a force of nature that will crush him that he must still find an answer to.

After Achilles enters his berserker episode he is brought back to balance by Priam. Priam does this by risking his life and entering the Achaeans camp with the guidance of Hermes. Achilles is so surprised and impressed by this that when he first sees Priam he asks Priam if he is a god. The courage and love for his son that Priam shows when he does this reminds Achilles of his father and Patroclus and units them in grief. With Achilles transformation communicating that you have to move beyond grief and go on with life. As soon as Achilles realizes this he passes this on to Priam with the story that he tells him about Niobe and her children. Showing that even though the gods killed all of her children Niobe exhausted from grief had to continue to eat. This little tale signifying that even when grief cripples you you must remember to live on.

Sadly the Warrior code and the Familial code, at least when it comes to the greeks, is not mutually exclusive. This is because to have a family you have to at the very least be able to prevent your family from being taken from you. That means that in those times you had to be able to fight and fight well which is where the code of the Warrior came in. Its easy to see this play out with the talk Hector has with his wife Andromache about the worry he faced when the greeks would enslave her. Which to prevent demanded his attention as a warrior for if he did not fight for his family who would.

1. Achilles and Hector are contrasted through their motivation of honor, not only in the eyes of those who follow them, but also in the eyes of the gods. Family proves to be a strong motivator for Hector as does the fact that he fights at home with his people defending their city. Briseis is to Achilles what Hectors family is to, because until Achilles got her back he refused to fight. Hector is blinded by the first battle’s glorious victory by the Trojans, seemingly by the will of Zeus himself. These two are the ideal champions of their people. Hector for honor and compassion towards his people and Achilles for his fierce fighting nature. Because of Achilles’ arrogance about his superiority, he finds himself in numerous dishonorable situations, which include leaving his men to fight without him, all because Agamemnon scratched his god-like ego. They both shared anger, but for different reasons. Hector was infuriated at Paris, who snuck Helen back, making Troy vulnerable to assault. Achilles, on the other hand, does not necessarily portray anger until the fateful battle when his dear friend Patroclus misleads Hector on the field armored as Achilles, and Hector kills Patroclus. They both came from honorable ancestry, but this story is about how they chose their own paths and if they would become honorable and worth remembering. In the end, both led honorable victories and fought for what they cared about most; for Achilles it was immortality, for Hector it was the love for his people and the responsibility he acted through valor.

2. Hectors father, King Priam, sought out Achilles and prayed to him to let him bury his son Hector. Achilles agreed, although why we are not fully detailed. In these ancient Greek conflicts, the honor and valor is with defeating an enemy and not in mutilating those corpses when they cannot fight back. It seems, as for the action of Achilles killing Hector during his rage, he may have realized the hurt it caused other innocent family members. Perhaps the matter was due to Priam pleading him for the body, but it is unclear. But whether or not it was the plea feeding Achilles’ power driven ego or his sadness, it was an honorable gesture returning the fallen Hector’s body to be buried as a Trojan. The fact that after such a sacrilegious display to both sides of the fighting and he chose to calm his rage and let peace be made with him and Hector’s remains changes the character’s moral figure in the story. Perhaps this whole scene is meant to testify how forgiveness is possible even when a situation seems unbearable to forgive, yet Achilles did forgive, or at least understand grief and loss.

3. I believe it is possible for these two codes to coexist, because without one there is often not the other. For Hector even though he was not totally sure if he would win, he believed he was the better man and perhaps the gods would favor his victory. Achilles did not wish to fight any longer, and contemplated a “domestic life,’ but honor in vengeance called him back to respect his “family,’ Patroclus. In this instance one sees the warrior and familial mesh together in an emotional fever pitch. Honor in Hectors case pulled harder than family, thus he thought more of victory than self-preservation. Through both of these codes, the characters here battled between what is expected of them and what the situation called for.

1.    I found the Iliad to be somewhat of an amusing read, not due to the war scenes that depict images of violence and destruction, but because of all the characters and how Homer portrays them.   It almost seems like a soap opera between all the gods.   All the gods spend so much time with petty arguments between themselves and manipulating the humans to their liking, it definitely ads drama and length to The Iliad.

Two main characters, Hector and Achilles, have many similarities and differences.   Both men and there presence gives hope and courage to men on the battle field.   When Patroclus disguised himself in Achilles’s armor, the Greeks moral and passion to win the battle instantly returned, merely at the sight of “Achilles’.   He is a figure that men look up to and revere.   Hector, being the prince, and brother of Paris, has a likewise affect on his men too.   He is usually at the front, leading his men into battle.   Both at times let pride blind their decision making.   Hector and Achilles miss a lot of the battle (Achilles more, he doesn’t enter until the end of the Iliad).   Hector, however, misses parts of the battle due to his cowardliness.   He tucks his tail and runs when the Trojans are being pushed back.   Even though he was manipulated quite a bit by the gods, his absence was due to his lack of courage.   Achilles on the other hand, was incredibly proud.   He sat it his tent licking his wounds while all his comrades were in the thick of battle.   He was slighted by Agamemnon, and to get back at him, sits in his tent pitying himself and therefore great casualties are incurred to his fellow countrymen.

Hector to me seems to have a better sense of loyalty to his fellow Trojans.   Despite the few times he retreats (his men follow), he has a better sense of the familial code towards his countrymen.   Achilles however, does not.   His pride overthrows his connection to his countrymen.   After he is insulted by Agamemnon,   he curses them all and prays to Zeus for their destruction.   The only thing that over throws that and reconnects him to his fellow warriors his the death of his good friend Patroclus.

2.   Priam travels to Achilles tent, and begs for Hectors body back.   He urges Achilles to think of the love he has for his father and friend.   I believe that this action brings to Achilles attention the disrespectfulness of his actions, and for once, he thinks of someone else’s feelings.   He is no loner self-absorbed and prideful.   He thinks of how his own father will soon be like Priam as soon as his destiny is fulfilled.   The end of The Iliad leaves Achilles with a softened heart and a change of character.

3.   You need the warrior code to defend the familial code otherwise the latter will be manipulated by malignant forces. You need the familial code to keep the warrior code in check, the two are interrelated.   Each code would not be the same or even exist without the other.