Anger in The Iliad and Genies Essay - 943 Words

Anger in The Iliad and Genies We live in a society of violence and extravagance. One can pick up a newspaper and see a headline reading â€Å"Bride Killed On Wedding Day By Crazed Ex-Boy Friend†. We live in an age of people who drive hundred thousand dollar cars. These are on opposite sides of the spectrum. We see people causing great pain and people who are trying to lose themselves in material goods, to avoid the suffering in life. This is the society we live in, which can be seen in all civilizations in the history of man. It was evident in the time of Greek heroism and the days of Hebrew culture. Life seems to be a journey to control ones happiness by avoiding craziness in oneself and others. This craziness or blind rage is called†¦show more content†¦The book of Genesis deals with the concept of Ate and anger as it almost does not exist, but refers to it instead as the act of sinning. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they had sinned. In the text it said, the fruit â€Å"was plea sing to the eye and desirable for the knowledge† (3; 6) Both Adam and Eve where told not to do that, but they did. This occurrence is temptation and evil. This action of evil and temptation is the Hebrews â€Å"Ate†. This action of evil is Ate for the Hebrews. The delusion that is Ate is illustrated in these two different cultures. In the Greek text we see Ate as anger that comes from an outside force. The Greeks of Homer’s times believe that anger fuels the lives of the people. In the Hebrew text Ate is shown as temptation and evil. Genesis is a religious text, so ate is the idea of an outside force called original sin. Ate in both these cases are the driven forces that are trying to be controlled. Due to different purposes, their style caters to that. We now see that the presence of Ate exists in both the culture and style of the texts. But how does it affect the people of the time? A concrete way was to see this was to see the way it affected their bodies. The conflict and wrath of the god rears its awful head throughout Genesis and the Iliad. We see the effect of this in actual physical form in these epics. In the Iliad Agamemnon has taken Briseis from Achilles’ because his