Achilles Questions Book 9

Lauren Poblete

Humanities

Jana Peter

27 February 2007

Iliad Notes


Write a question. It can be an interpretive question that you have an opinion on or something about the text that you don't understand. You do not need to write the answer.

Agamemnon is using lots of things to get Achilles to fight for him and with his men. My question is, does Achilles realize that if he accepts Agamemnon’s offer that he won’t really get any of it? Meaning, Agamemnon knows that Achilles will die in war, so he wont have to give Achilles anything. The land his daughters. Nothing.

What was your opinion of Agamemnon before reading this section? Does your opinion of him change after reading it? Why or why not? A one paragraph reply is fine, minimum of 6 solid setneces, but you are encouraged to write more.

In class we discussed Agamemnon’s traits and personality. He was selfish, greedy and cowardly among many other things. Those were all the things I associated with Agamemnon when I was reading the first tablet of the Iliad. So far, what I have read in book nine, my feelings about Agamemnon has NOT changed. Agamemnon is still being very cowardly; he is trying to persuade Achilles to fight for him, by offering him all these nice things which no man in his right mind wouldn’t accept. In the first book, Agamemnon thinks highly of himself and in book nine as Agamemnon offers Achilles prizes, he tells Achilles he is a great fighter but he is still better no matter how good of a fight Achilles is. The only thing that surprised me about Agamemnon was that he was offering Achilles prizes for him to fight with his troops , but then again, this goes back to cowardliness because Agamemnon is only doing that because it will benefit him.
Sometimes it is hard to sort out weather or not the things Agamemnon does are good or bad.

At various points in the text some characters attempt to persuade other characters to take a course of action. Examples of characters using persuasion include Nestor, Odysseus, and Ajax. Make a list of the persuasive strategy used by these characters, following this format
1. Appeal to reason (logic - does it “make sense” to do what the speaker says)
2. Appeal to emotion (does it try to make you happy, sad, angry etc… in an attempt to get you to act or think a certain way)
3. Appeal to ethics (right and wrong, moral principals - does it get you to think that a particular thought is morally right or wrong to get you to act or think a certain way)

Diomedes trys to persuade the counsel not to loose hope in winning over troy. Me this seemed like it appealed to emotion because Diomedes was talking about honor, and honor connects to emotions.


Odyseuss tries to persuade Achilles to stay and fight for Agamemnon. He was sent from Agamemnon with a message but he doesn’t say exactly was Agamemnon says. I think this appeals to ethics. Because he is trying to get Agamemnon to fight, but he is talking in such a way that it sounds more appealing to Achilles.

Also, the one thing that stuck out to me the most was when Agamemnon was trying to persuade Achilles to fight with him by giving him many things. I think that Agamemnon is appealing to logic because he is trying to manipulate things the way that he wants them. But if Achilles would really think about it he would realize that he wouldn’t be getting any of the things that Agamemnon said he would give him AFTER the war because Achilles is going to die in battle, like his mother had told him before he left for Troy.