Homer and the Illiad What

Homer and the Illiad

What is Shame and Guilt?

Shame and guilt are two feelings that are most of the time misinterpreted to be similar. Despite of the fact that shame and guilt are somehow related, these two feelings have differences in terms of how they affect an individual.

Guilt is a feeling that is caused by our conscience that is disturbed or bothered. It is a reaction caused by things or actions we do which we may regret. Usually, offenses make us feel guilt. This includes actions that can harm a person or actions that can cause negative things to others. As with the characters of Iliad like Paris and Helen, both felt guilt from the immorality that they committed.

Shame on the other hand may root from the causes of guilt. It is an emotion that may come along with guilt. However, unlike guilt, shame can have a greater effect to an individual as compared with guilt. Shame makes one feel embarrassed and humiliated which consequently lowers the morale of an individual in terms of social relationship with others. It is generally focused on the negative effect that shame effects to one's personality. Guilt, on the other hand is focused on the wrongfulness of the offenses that an individual committed. For example, when we feel guilty we always think of the actions that we committed, blame ourselves, and say things like "I should not have done that." Despite that we feel guilt, we can still socialize with others. In fact, guilt can be hidden from others. However, in shame, the offenses or actions that a person did can affect his personality and this can be apparent with the changes that a person demonstrates about mingling with others.

In general, shame focuses on emotions while guilt focuses on actions committed.

Shame and Guilt in Iliad of Homer

Shame and guilt are elements that the characters of Homer always keep away from. The tragedies caused by the different situations in Iliad have shown failure of values that the heroic characters of Homer give importance. Such values include strength, pride, glamour, pride, and nobility (Rexroth, Online). Consequently, shame and guilt result from such failure. As indicated in Classics Revisited, extracted from Kenneth Rexroth's,

Violence is not approved of in itself by the Greeks, but all the values that they most admire -- the nobility, pride and power, glamour and strength of barbaric chieftains -- flourish only in the context of violence and must be fed by it continuously. Failure of these values provokes shame, the opposite of the assumption of responsibility, and shame provokes disaster.

Homer's society is generally based on values that prevent shame and guilt. This is apparent in most of Homer's characters such as Paris, Helen, and Menelaus. Guilt surrounds both Paris and Helen. Paris felt guilty for taking Helen, Menelaus wife, while Helen felt the same for the immorality that she and Paris committed. On the part of Menelaus, shame surrounds him for his wife left with another man. Consequently, this shame results to a battle that puts the Trojans into danger. This battle was also one of the reasons that made Paris feel the guilt as the Trojans were obliged to go to it because of him and Helen.

The culture of the Homeric society depends on honor, hence shame is not welcome to them because public praise is important and blame should be avoided. Above all, they view honor as the most valuable wealth of a man. Homer demonstrated this culture in the value that he depicted in the character of Hector.

In today's society, one may say that the actions of Helen, leaving his husband Menelaus and going away with another man, is shameful. In her article The Conflicting Views of Helen, Katie Olester suggests the following.

According to others, she is a deceitful and shameful women, the sole cause of the deaths of thousands of brave Geek and Trojan men.

Whenever Helen is present in the story, she displays self-consciousness about the scandal of her behavior, in leaving her husband for a foreigner and causing the war at Troy. Shame is her distinction,

The concept of guilt similarly played an important role in Homer's characters for guilt made Paris decide to fight Menelaus for the price of Helen and the Trojan's peace and freedom from having to fight in a battle with the Greeks.

The Guilt and Shame In Heroes

Sometimes, there is a misconception that heroes do not feel shame and guilt. For instance, in a movie, when heroes eliminate their adversaries, the viewers are happy because they just think of the good result that such action can bring to everyone. The viewers do not care of how the hero may have felt about his action of getting rid of the enemies and the viewers may think that the hero will feel happy and proud for what he did. However, in the Iliad of Homer, it is apparent that even heroes do feel shame and guilt. The best example of which are revealed in the characters of Achilles and Hector.

Achilles was a great Greek fighter. His passion was to fight and become well-known for his fighting skills. He was known to be the greatest fighter in Greece, thus despite Menelaus and Achilles do not agree with each other, Achilles was asked to fight for Greece against Troy during the quest of getting Helen back to Greece from Troy. Despite of Achilles greatness in fighting, his character still revealed that he is human who is able to feel guilt about all the lives that he took away. Similarly, Achilles demonstrated guilt when he felt responsible for the death of his foster brother Patroclus who was killed in the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Another instance when guilt in heroes was proven by Achilles was during the ransoming of Hector's body. Despite that he killed Hector for killing his foster brother, Achilles still felt guilt within because he knew that he killed an honorable man who did not intend to kill Patroclus. Jonathan Shay described Achilles as follows.

Achilles is portrayed as guilt ridden with survivor's syndrome, as bereft of his will to live and as feeling dead already.

Hector similarly felt guilt during the time that he killed Patroclus despite of the fact that he was not aware that it was Patroclus. For him, he killed a child a not a warrior. Moreover, as the first son of Priam and as a warrior leader, Hector felt guilty about the battle that the Trojans has to face because of his brother Paris.