Journal #5

I believe that I have started every journal talking about how I feel about said journal each week, so I must do so on this one as well just for consistency purposes. I have become very comfortable with expressing my ideas in the journal over the weeks as well as with the Iliad. As we’ve read through the books, I have become very impressed with the orators that had this story committed to memory because how long it is and so many important details that you cannot forget when telling the story. Especially memorizing those catalogues. I can barely remember what the few books that we read each week nonetheless the specific details of all 24 books. I am very amazed. Hopefully there is no learning curve for me with the Odyssey because the Iliad was one in itself at first. My studying habits have changed a lot over the past 6(?) weeks. At first I only read which wasn’t working for me so I had to find ways to get the information I was missing by just reading it.

During class a lot of good topics were brought up that made me think. Looking at my notes I see that we talked about emotions a lot, but in many different ways which is because there are a whole array of emotions that are being felt throughout these books with all that is going on. You have Patroklos dying, Achilles grieving him and getting over his fight with Agamemnon, Zeus giving the other Gods free reign to do whatever they want in battle now to keep his boule straight and that itself can cause a lot of problems… with all this going on these books also have many different types of love shown between many characters. From the Gods to Briseis. The first example of how love in book 18 was between Achilles and Patroklos when Achilles had his catharsis and was going through a range of emotions when he found out that Patroklos had died in battle. Thetis’ love for Achilles was her coming up from the ocean when she heard her sons cry and went to Hephastos to get him new armor made, Briseis monologuing about Patroklos’ kindness was an example of their Philia, the Gods protecting their children and other warriors in the war that were fighting on their side as well as them fighting each other,…In class while talking about Achilles grieving for his long lost pal, the conversation of whether a person lamenting over someone they lost is a beautiful thing or not came up and I can see both sides of the argument for why someone would or would not see it as such. Why I believe that people would think that lamenting is beautiful is because that there is beauty in people being real and true to themselves and when lamenting people are at their most vulnerable and are being 100% genuine with their emotions and not putting on a facade for those that are around them. I can also see why people would not consider it beautiful. Although people being true to their emotions is a great thing, the part about seeing someone down bad and sad about something they can not change is the part people probably do not think about as beautiful and focus more on feeling empathetic or sympathetic for them. Even though someone who thinks it is beautiful can also feel these ways. Personally, I can not pick a side understanding where they are both coming from. Piggybacking off of the two last things I have brought up in this paragraph, we also briefly talked about who is more in love? People who are getting married or the people who are lamenting? And I would like to expand upon this one, because I thought that this was a really good question. People who are lamenting are more in love than people who are getting married. This is so because marriage is a conscious decision that you can make whether you are in love or not and many people who were not in love have gotten married and many still are. Even people who get married because they love someone are most likely not as in love because even the definition of what love is a very debatable thing when you lament for someone that is not something you consciously think about and is something that is just..felt. No if, ands, or buts about it you know that you actually felt love for that person because you would not react this way for them if you did not. While I have not felt like I have been romantically in love, so I am not speaking from personal experience you can think you are in love and it just be a strong infatuation and not actually love. Another reason lamenting someone shows a stronger love connection than getting married is that you and the person have been through some things together by that point. The good, the bad, and the ugly have gone through so much more than someone who just got married and have not passed the test of time. That goes for non romantic relationships as well. Achilles and Patrokls’ relationship is a great example of that. Achilles was mourning was so great that he started desecrating his own body. Do you know how upset you have to be to desecrate yourself?? Last week, I believe, is when we talked about how when the Trojans killed Patroklos they also desecrated his body as a way to have a catharsis of all the anger and resentment towards the Achaeans. Desecration of the body that they feel is to blame or is at least partially to blame to the grief they are feeling seems to be a thing for them. The Greeks and Trojans are tremendous at letting out their emotions, their methods of doing so may be debatable but nonetheless they are very expressive. Us, on the other hand, are not. As what was said in class, we repress our emotions for a plethora of reasons. Some of the reasons that I would say that people suppress their feelings for are because of the way people react to seeing someone having anything other than a positive emotion, could be wrong place wrong time, they do not want anyone in their business, or not knowing how to release the emotion you are feeling amongst many other reasons. One way we do find a way to release emotions today as we talked about in class is through art. Whether it is creating it or viewing it we use art to express how we feel. I know personally I have a sad playlist I play when I am sad or I could watch the Pursuit of Happyness. Art is all about people expressing themselves and is a beautiful way to let out emotions, emotions that have even influenced whole categories of art like the Blues, and Hip hop.

Patroklos’ death was a bigger deal than I thought it would be. He did not really seem that important to me honestly until we got to this point and seeing the domino effect of his death. Maybe he was not important as a character but was just important to the development of the story and it was just his role as Achilles closest person that made him somewhat important. I found the relationship between Briseis and Patroklos interesting because of the circumstances of it and how she still found him to be super kind, but he also was not the one to kill her family. She probably found him kind because he was the only one trying to comfort her in her hardest time and just having someone there for her was what she needed at that time, no matter who they were.

Since Patroklos wore Achilles armor into battle, was killed, and had the armor stolen by Hektor, Achilles no longer had any armor, so his mother Thetis sent off to have him have a special shield made by Hephastois. In the shield Hephastois put the stories of the world and basically every aspect of Human life. On the shield you have things like the Constellations, stars, the sun and the moon but you also have things like Marriage and farming, but also celebrations and peace and prosperity. I believe that the poet introduces the shield at this point in the story to bring it back home and remind people of all the things that are apart of life, and maybe also show the power of Achilles at this point with him being in possession of such important things. It relates to the Iliad because while this is a story of a very small portion of a 10 year war, I would say that this shield is a reminder of how it is bigger than this war between the Greeks and the Trojans but also how all of the elements of life play a role into the war as well.