ABSTRACT
In this chapter we attempt to fathom the mystery that the hero Achilles offers to us. He embodied the notion of force and action as opposed to the Odyssean virtues of interiority and enlightenment. Half-divine, semi-human, this creature of action would mark out the territory of war upon the plains before Troy. He will come to be seen as the exemplification of violence, war, torture and horror. The re-emergence of his ghost after his death would claim his rights and his honours long after his passing. As Bonnard has said: ‘The greatness of Achilles is illumined by the conflagration of a world that seems to be passing away, the Achaean world of warfare and pillage. But is this world really dead, does it not survive in our own age?’ (1962:57). The power of the Achillean motif is that it draws us again to the conflagrations of our period and the subjugation of weakness by power. If Achilles exemplifies power then Helen exemplifies the dominated and the subjugated. We conclude the chapter by visiting her bower as Achilles fights below.
