Destiny, Fate, Free Will and Free Choice in Homers Iliad :: Iliad essays

Fate and Destiny in The Iliad   The Iliad portrays fate and destiny as supreme and ultimate forces.  The Iliad presents the question of who or what is finally responsible for a worlds destiny, yet the answers to this question are not quite clear.  In umteen instances, it seems that man has no control over his fate and destiny, but at other points, it seems as if a mans fate lies in the consequences of his actions and decisions. Therefore, The Iliad reveals a man sometimes controls his destiny.   In The Iliad the gods fate is controlled much in the same flair as a mortals, except for one major difference, the immortals cannot die and thence do not have a destiny. Immortals lives may not be judged because they have not and will not die. The gods are able to see mortals fate but not their own directly.   In keep I, the hassle is a result of the upsetting of Apollo.  The gods produce situations over trivial things, much(prenominal) as forgetting a sa crifice or, in this case, insulting Chryses.  The gods have animosity tantrums, and they switch sides quickly and without consideration.  One day they protect the Achaeans, the nextt day the Trojans.  The gods shimmer favorites with no sense at all of any of the moral or political issues involved in the war.  Zeus does what he can, but the others tolerate as though they were better than all the rest, in more ship canal than one.  They have no compassion for their own kind, and their concern for man is flush less.  Occasionally, the gods will show concern for one of their favorites when he is having a atrocious time, but it is very rare.  This attitude is the result of their own vindictiveness against reality and mans own tendency to irrational behavior or carelessness in worshipping the gods.  But more often than not, men find themselves fighting a force beyond their control.   The opening statement of The Iliad contains the phrase the will of Zeus, and this reflects the Greeks principle that man is in the grip of forces that he cannot control.  It is also another elbow room of saying that all things are fated and out of the hands of man.  Book XXII shows that the gods control the fates of man   But once they reached the springs for the fourth time,