Achilles and Sir Gawain: A Comparison of Ancient and Medieval Heroism - Essay Example

Achilles and Sir Gawain: A Comparison of Ancient and Medieval Heroism In order to learn about a culture, we can examine what a particular culture finds heroic. Heroes are supposed to be examples for all of the people of a culture to look up to, and their exemplary deeds are what sets them apart from the rest of the people. If we were to compare two different heroes from two different cultures, we might see that what one culture finds heroic another one wouldn’t. As different cultures tend to have very different ideas, these differing cultures will have very differing heroes. For instance, the heroes of ancient Greece are very different from the heroes of the heroes of medieval England. The main reason that heroes from these two different cultures are so different is because of the vastly differing views in the afterlife. To demonstrate these differences, we can examine Achilles and Sir Gawain, two exemplary heroes from their own specific eras. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles was the greatest warrior of the Trojan War. His decisions to fight and to not fight turned the entire tide of the entire war. Often times, though, people of today have a hard time accepting Achilles’ place as a great hero. He was prideful, thirsted for glory, did not seem to act with much integrity, and seemed to have abandoned his comrades for a time. However, it is pridefulness and thirst for glory that made him a hero in ancient Greek ties. This is because to the Greeks, the vision of the afterlife was one where people basically disappeared into the underworld. In order for people to earn some sort of immortality, they had to do something so great that they would be remembered as a great hero for all time. This is why Achilles was such a great hero to the Greeks. Achilles was by far the greatest warrior of the Trojan war. No other warriors came as close to slaying as many enemies as he did. When he decided to not participate in the war, the Trojans felt a certain amount of certainty that they could win. After Patroclus’ death, Achilles lets out a great cry, signaling his return to the battle: “The great sound shocked the Trojans/ into tumult, as a trumpet blown/ by a savage foe shocks an encircled town,/ so harsh and clarion was Achilles’ cry” (6. 251-254). So great was Achilles’ strength that just the sound of his voice alone was enough to send terror through the Trojans. This even more than examples of his fierceness in battle shows the extent of Achilles’ reputation. In this comparison, Homer is stating that the sound of Achilles’ voice is comparable to what a town besieged by an entire army would feel when they heard the army. This shows that Achilles, a single man, was feared as much as an entire army, and any army with him on their side would surely win. His voice did not have any supernatural effect to it, yet just the sound of his voice was enough to cause the death of twelve men: “Three great cries/ he gave above the moat. Three times they shuddered, whirling backward, Trojans and allies,/ and twelve good men took mortal hurt from cars and weapons in the rank behind” (6.259-263). The effect of his voice on the enemy is the most telling example of the greatness of Achilles, for only a warrior that would be remembered always could have had such an effect on his enemies. It is also because Achilles is so great that he is so prideful. As a warrior of such great prestige, he could not allow anything that he perceived as an insult to pass. When Agamemnon demanded the woman that Achilles received as a reward for his valor in combat, he took it as such a great insult that he refused to fight any further in the battle: “Achilles, if it is true you set your heart on home/ and will not stir a finger to save the ships/ from being engulfed by fire” (9.525-8). Heroism was completely dependent upon pride to the Greeks. Someone that was prideful could not have just let what Agamemnon did just slide. If a person were to let what Agamemnon did slide, then that would imply that Agamemnon had some sort of greater stature over that person. This person would not be the kind of person that would be remembered for all times. As this was the case, the Greeks would have thought that Achilles was less heroic if he had let the insult pass. This is what allowed Achilles to abandon his fellow Greeks, which he knew would result in the death of many, many more men if he was not fighting, and still retain his stature as a revered warrior. From their point of view, this would have been the only thing that Achilles could have done in regards to the situation. There was nothing that anybody could say to him that would change his mind to participate in the battle. He even went so fat as to allow his friend Patroclus to fight in his armor, which ended up resulting in the death of his friend. The death of his friend was what provoked him to rejoin the battle. This shows that the Greeks were not a culture that revered the individual that sacrificed for the better of the state; it was all about the individual and individual glory. As Achilles did not know the other men personally and was not friends with them, their death did not affect him directly. Since Patroclus was his friend, he could no longer sit back and not fight. The death of his friend was more personal to him that Agamemnon taking his woman, so accordingly he chose to fight. While a modern audience might be appalled by Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s body, it was not something that the Greek audience would have thought twice about: “the Homeric picture of the Greek Heroic Age makes it clear that…the outraging of an enemy’s body was required by the knight’s code of honor” (Basset 41). He did not fight for his fellow Greeks, but the avenge the loss of his friend. It is because of the very personal aspect to his motivations that Achilles was a great warrior in Greek culture. It was all about personal glory, as the soldier who fought for his other men would not have received all of the glory and would not have been remembered after his death. The culture of medieval England had a different religion, Christianity, and in this religion people were able to earn an immortal afterlife, but people were required to be subservient to the will of God in order to do so. The code of chivalry was what the knights of the medieval period went by in order to follow the will of God, and Sir Gawain is an example of a knight that became famous for his deeds because he followed this chivalric code. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain does not seek personal glory or fame, but he seeks to help others and be the brightest example of a chivalric knight possible. When the Green Knight shows up at Arthur’s castle on New Year’s Eve, he proceeds to insult King Arthur and his knights by calling them “beardless children” (280), and he then challenges whomever to a game involving an exchange of blows with an ax. Gawain volunteers for this challenge, but he doesn’t do so because of pride, which is why Achilles would have taken such an offer. He volunteers for the challenge because, due to the chivalric code, he needs to stand up for his fellow knights and not let them be insulted. He also is also being self-sacrificing, as he states that he is the weakest of the knights and the loss of his life would less damaging in comparison with another more valuable knight: “I am the weakest, well I know, and of wit feeblest;/ And the loss of my life would be the least of any” (354-355). Achilles would not have stated that he was the least worthy of his fellow warriors, but it is because Gawain is humble that he is considered great in the context of his story. Later in the story when Gawain comes to the castle of Bertilak, he comes under temptation of the lady of the house. She represents sexual seduction, which a proper knight would have to be able to resist: “Lo! It was the lady, loveliest to behold,/ That drew the door behind her deftly and still/ And was bound for his bed—abashed was the knight,/ And laid his head low again in likeness of sleep” (1187-90). Resisting the temptations of Lady Bertilak was what made Gawain heroic, while Achilles would have seemed weak if he had not wanted to be with a woman who was offering herself to him. Gawain also was an exemplary knight for his honesty and his honoring of the pact with the Green Knight. When Gawain is staying at Bertilak’s castle, he makes an agreement with him to give his host anything that he might get while his host was away on a hunt. In honoring this agreement, he gave his host the kisses that Lady Bertilak had bestowed upon him. This was seen as a heroic act as he was following the code of chivalry by being honest. By honoring the pact and letting the Green Knight take the ax to Gawain’s neck, he was further being chivalric because he was keeping his word. Achilles would have found nothing heroic about letting somebody cut his head off with an ax without putting up any kind of struggle. The only punishment that Gawain received was a slight cut on his neck because he did not give Bertilak the girdle that he received from Lady Bertilak. This was the only fault that could be found in Gawain as he lacked complete honesty because he feared for his life. A differing view of Gawain states that this isn’t a tale of heroism, and that “Gawain’s wound symbolizes the correction of an improperly ordered will” (Farrell 97). However, the view that this tale shows only Gawain learning a lesson about pride doesn’t include his selflessness in the act of accepting the challenge. He was not doing this to further his own glory, and he obviously found nothing glorious about riding to his apparent death when he set out to fulfill his part of the bargain. All of these traits that Gawain showed had to do with the belief that following them would earn him a place in heaven. He did not need to seek glory; people seeking their own glory had nothing to do with people getting into heaven. The differences in the ways these heroes were able to achieve life after death led directly to the ways that they were considered heroic. There is basically nothing that these two heroes have in common, showing the vast differences between what was considered heroic at these different times. While being prideful was part of being heroic to Achilles, Gawain’s humility was part of what made him heroic. Still, as we have the ability to look back through the past, we can see that there is no doubt that both of these men were heroic in their own ways. Works Cited Bassett, Samuel Eliot, “Achilles’ Treatment of Hector’s Body.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 64, (1933), PP. 41-65. Farrell, Thomas J., “Gawain’s Wound.” PMLA, vol. 100, no. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 97-99. Read More