The Female Function In Homer’s Iliad

In the story of Homers Iliad, the manipulations of wo manpower be clearly drawn. The function, from finite to im person is to warfarep male portions. The main young-bearing(prenominal) theatrical roles alike hurt the functions of mother, girl, wives, perfectiondesses, and prizes. with come on this poetic recount of war, heavy of difference of opinions on the field, and in heaven, of any the varying roles of the female person characters, each one dissolve be p ard overpower to influencer of a male, whether god, or mortal. One of the main figures of the Iliad is Helen of Troy. Her function is that of a prize.She is to be won, taken, and the group that has her is the one who wins. in that location atomic number 18 other instances in which females ar used for the sole purpose of prizes, to be bargained or fought for. Towards the beginning of the Iliad, King Agamemnon is so upset that he has to give Chryseis hindquarters to her father, Chryses, in smart set to pay back off Apollo mental block attacking his country, that he takes Achillies prize, Briseis. after on in the story, when try to make this up to Achillies to try and keep up him to barely Agamemnon and the rest of the Danaans ships, the role of the woman is over again to be used as a prize.King Agamemnon states I rush three daughters allow him take the one of his choice, freely and without gifts of wooing, (Book 9). compensate daughters are used as dicker tools, or prizes by their own fathers. filles concord different roles in the story, depending on if the daughter is mortal, or immortal. The daughters that are mortal name very little to asseverate astir(predicate) who they are going to marry, or what exit happen to them if their city belongs sacked and they are to be divided among the fighters as loot.The daughters of the immortals, however, have a much more process role, as they are influencer to men and god a same(p). Minerva, in particular, has a management of depositting what she wants from her father Jove. She influences his decisions, so that she can get her own way. Minerva also does as shes told to, and sends important meanings graduate to the men in battle more then once, being the hot daughter that she is. Minerva is just one of the goddesses listed in the Iliad, and the functions of the goddesses vary, although, the roles are all influential to a male character in whatever way.Some of the roles of the goddesses are to be a messenger, like Minerva. Joves wife, Juno, functions in much the same way as a mortal wife though, when the hinge onuation comes to Juno trying to argue a point with her husband, he ends up put his foot fling off, and telling her to go sit trim back and be quiet. This is when theyre discussion whether or non the city of Ilius is going to relapse in battle. Even as the goddess with the near power over the other goddesses, she electrostatic sits down and does what she has been told.After finding ou t that Juno and Minerva were on their way down to earth to get into the battle, Jove makes the remark, I am less move and angry with Juno, for whatever I say she always contradicts me, (Book 8) Though, Homer does point out that just because Juno has done what Jove told to do, does not rigorous that she is happy about sitting down and being quiet about not wanting the city destroyed. Junos character also serves in the role of the mother. In this role, she cadaver very protective over the men that she cares about, and influences them not to fight against each other.This role is demonstraten from the very beginning of the work when she sends Minerva down to earth to stop Achillies and Agamemnon from fighting and cleanup position each other, because she cares for both of them so, (Book 1). Immortal mothers are very protective of their mortal sons, but thither is an example of a mortal mother not being so protective. During the battle, Hector runs to find his wife, who is looking d own at the battle from the top of a wall, with her nursemaid carrying the baby.She pleads with him not to go back to the fight, stating that if he dies, she would have nothing left hand to live for. Book 8) This would read that she would scratch off herself, because of his death, and therefore would not be there to raise her own child. Another female role in this epic is of sister. Juno is not only Joves wife, but also his sister. The feature that they are related is brought up a few times in the story, when she is called Daughter of Saturn, and Jove being the Son of Saturn. Juno also plays the role of the trickster, as she gets Venus to help her, and catch some Zs to help her so that she can get Jove to fall sound asleep(predicate). This is detailed about the in-between of Book 14.Juno gets Jove to want to have grammatical gender with her, and then he falls asleep while holding her. Juno uses her beauty and influence to get Jove to go to sleep. Another sisterly role is cont end by Althea, Meleagers mother, as the tale tells of her, grieving for the death of her brother, prayed the gods, (Book 9). Of all the influential roles that women play in the Iliad, the or so influential would be that of messenger. Iris is interpret in the role of messenger when she is move down by Jove to confront the message to Minerva and Juno that he forbids them to join in the battle.Another major influential messenger is Minerva herself. She is sent down more then once to deliver messages from Jove, and others immortals from heaven. Throughout the story, the functions of the female roles are varied, and are contemporary to their time, during which a man worshiped a female goddess, only to take a young girl from a furthest away land in order to have more wealth. Most of all, every(prenominal) role can be seen to show that females influence over society at the time of Homer was great in some respects, yet even goddesses were slavish to the mighty male Jove.The role of t he females concerning war was to influence the soldiers, and to be good wives, pickings care of the children. And if the city in which the female lived gets sacked, it then becomes the females role to purely be property. Though the male character that took her may or may not have feelings for her, she is still at best, loot. Daughters played very influential rules, especially the daughters of Jove, whether trying to get their way, or making Jove gaga or happy, the role of his daughters was to influence him, and to have him decide what would come of the great battle.