William Chiu

The Iliad's plot was very entertaining to follow. The prose version of the poem appealed a lot more to me because of the fluidity of the words as spoken language. The verse version is harder to understand in that the poetic content forces me to focus more on interpreting its words and less on the events occurring in the story. The story's hero Achilles, is very commonplace in that there is a flaw in the hero' character such as in many other tragedies. But nonetheless I was intrigued by the way one man can make such a change in the outcome of a war. This story and the past two other stories also incorporated a lot of gods. I wanted to know why the authors in those Greek times decided to make the gods appear to be such flawed deities. Why do they all exhibit characteristics which lessen their view as the all powerful who know appear stern and wise in the sculptures and paintings. The gods however do play the role as comedic relief, such as when Zeus and Hera have their husband and wife arguments. the reader cannot help but think how they are like their parents.