A passage will be extracted from the Iliad to analyze how the contents of passage are expressed and contain the similes. The selected passage describes the fight between Achilles and Hector. In fact, the scene tells how fierce Achilles chases after Hector. Furthermore, it describes how Hector gets frightened as facing his death by means of the similes: Hector looked up, saw him, started to tremble, nerve gone, he could hold his ground no longer, he left the gates behind and away he fled in fear- and Achilles went for him, fast, sure of his speed s the wild mountain hawk, the quickest thing on wings, launching smoothly, swooping down on a cringing dove and the dove flits out from under, the hawk screaming over the quarry, plunging over and over, his fury driving him down to beak and tear his kill- so Achilles flew at him, breakneck on in fury with Hector fleeing along the walls of Troy, fast as his legs would go. (22. 162-173) As seen above, the passage contains not only the scene of birds’ chase that the hawk swoops down on the dove but also the warriors’ running fight. Some points of contact between the narrative and the simile can be analyzed in this passage.
Achilles in the narrative corresponds to the wild mountain hawk in the simile. Furthermore, the beak and wings of the hawk represent in order of Achilles’s “the Pelian ash spear”, which is mentioned right before the extracted passage, and his fast legs. Meanwhile, Hector who is pursued by Achilles in the narrative corresponds to the scared dove of being attacked by the hawk in the simile. The hawk emphasizes about Achilles’s wildness, strongness, and his side of threat in the narrative, whereas, “the quickest thing on wings” reveals Achilles as the swift runner.
The Essay on Achilles Troy Son Hector
Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis. He was the mightiest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer's Iliad. Thetis attempted unsuccessfully to make her son immortal. There are two versions of the story. In the earlier version, Thetis anointed the infant with ambrosia and then placed him upon a fire to burn away his mortal portions; she was ...
In the mean time, the action related to the beak of hawk in the parts of similes previews how Achilles kills Hector in the narrative. On the other hand, Hector is emphasized how he becomes weak and gets feared on the scene, in front of his death by the most powerful man in the world, by expressed as the dove which is symbolized as peaceful bird far from wildness. The similes express the details about how Achilles does a fierce attack on Hector and how Achilles frightens Hector. Otherwise, the scene can be shown just as a running fight between two great heroes.
For instance, “…launching smoothly, swooping down on a cringing dove…” represents Achilles’s action of raiding Hector in detail. In addition to, “…the dove flits out from under, the hawk screaming… ” describes Hector as a pitiful and frail person while the scene gives an atmosphere of bloody terror. Even though Hector is a great warrior as the hero of Troy in the rest of the Iliad, this scene of fight emphasizes his another aspect by using simile of “dove” in the meantime he is described as fully feared and trembling on menace of Achilles.
However, Hector does not back down while the dove cringes in the simile. In conclusion, the hawk as the simile of Achilles and the dove as the simile of Hector are well represented in this scene. But the strength of the similes is that the detail can be expressed concisely with being animated. The similes emphasize the action and character of Achilles and Hector so that readers can have a better imagination of the scene in more detail.
