Achilles Will Return After These Messages - Essay Example

There are three traditional levels of conflict in fiction: man against the world, man against man, and man against himself. The distinguishing characteristic of soap opera is that it takes place entirely on the second level. A soap opera character may have a job or a role in society, or inner conflict, but the most important thing about them will always be their relationships with other people. A soap character might be introduced via an external event, such as a murder or a corporate merger, but they will be defined entirely by their friends, lovers, enemies, grudges, and so on.

Soap operas subordinate all other concerns to personalities and interpersonal conflict. To take a recent example (SoapCentral.com) from popular daytime soap Guiding Light: “Desperate to redeem himself as a father, Alan convinced Phillip to undergo the bone marrow transplant with Alan as the donor.” The phrasing is key: this isn’t a medical drama or even about saving a life, it’s about Alan trying to redeem himself. In soap opera, the character felt it personally necessary, and no other considerations need enter.

Achilles’ behavior through much of the Iliad, that is to say hiding in his tent doing nothing, is often described as that of a sulky adolescent ignoring his responsibilities out of pique. While that reading isn’t far off base, another angle would be to point out that his behavior is that of a soap opera character. Is he tired of the war, or does he have some larger problem? No, he has simply been personally affronted by Agamemnon over the matter of Briseis, and so refuses to fight. “Truly the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon has dishonoured me: for he has taken and keeps my prize through his own arrogant act.

” (Book 1, line 355) His feelings are of paramount importance, and the war can go hang. Indeed, within the context of a soap opera, the war is irrelevant. The questions of offense and personal honor are where the story lies. Of course, Achilles does return to the war in time, but why he does so is just as telling. He does not rally heroically just as the Trojans are about to overrun the Achaean positions, as would happen in a war story. He does not come to the realization that some things are more important than his hurt feelings, as might happen in the story of a personal journey.

Rather, he charges back into battle when the Trojans have the temerity to kill his lover, Patroclus. To put it another way, he left the war because the Achaeans hurt his feelings, and reentered it because the Trojans hurt his feelings even worse. “…neither doth my own heart bid me live on and abide among men, unless Hector first, smitten by my spear, shall lose his life, and pay back the price for that he made spoil of Patroclus, son of Menoetius.” (Book 18, line 90) If this is not soap opera characterization, it is difficult to say what else it might be.

The Iliad is often described as one of the founding documents of Western literature. It is certainly one of the earliest stories to have come down to us roughly intact, and its influence on other works is incalculable. To point out that it is, effectively, a soap opera is not to somehow demean the Iliad, but rather to ennoble the concept of a soap opera. I find it hard, today, to read the Iliad and not think at