Comparison of Troy and the IliadEssay Preview: Comparison of Troy and the IliadReport this essayWolfgang Peterson tackles the job of bringing the epic of Homers The Iliad to the big screen in his film Troy. Iliad being a lengthy text, it is impossible to include every detail in a movie. Therefore, there are obvious deviations from the book such as the length of the Trojan War, and the absence of celestial participation in the war. There is also an absence of mortal female characters such as Chryseis, Hecuba, and Cassandra in the movie. In contrast, though, the female characters who are included in the film are developed more elaborately than they are in the book.
In The Iliad, the first of many quarrels between Agamemnon and Achilles is ignited by Briseis and Chryseis. Because Agamemnon is forced to relinquish his prize, Chryseis, he demands Achilles to give up his own war prize, Briseis, as shown in the following quote:
But let this be my warning on your way:Since Apollo insists on taking my Chryseis,Ill send her back in my own ships with my crew.But I, I will be there in person at your tentsTo take Briseis in all her beauty, your own prize–So you can learn just how much greater I am than you(Homer, I. 215-219)This angers Achilles so greatly that he nearly kills Agamemnon, but is narrowly stopped in time by Athena. While Troy portrays the tension between Achilles and Agamemnon, it does not provide the same explanations for the animosity as the book does. Rather, the character of Briseis is given most of the credit for their fragile relationship. In the movie, the warrior and the king fight over Briseis, and when that argument is ended with Achilles finally getting his way, he is so distracted by her that it nearly costs the Achaeans the entire war. As Odysseus, played by Sean Bean, says, “Women have a way of complicating things.” It is true that Briseis is a character from the book, however she does not play as large of a role in the story as the character does in the movie and her name is only mentioned a few times throughout the book. Chryseis is missing in the movie, but her character is somewhat woven into the character of Briseis. According to The Iliad, Chryseis is a priestess of Apollo and Briseis is the princess of another land. In Troy, Briseis is said to be the cousin of Hector and Paris of Troy, who has recently committed herself to the worship of Apollo.
Hecuba, queen of Troy, is never mentioned nor shown in Troy, and neither is the daughter of the royal family, Cassandra. These two women also do not play vital roles in the book, however their presence is fairly significant. To make up for their absence, the movie Troy focuses more on the three female royalties actually portrayed: Briseis, as already mentioned, Andromache, wife of Hector, and Helen, the cause of the Trojan War. Andromaches character in the movie parallels her character in the book. She is dedicated to her husband and fears for his safety when he goes out into battle. And when she realizes that he has died, “the world [goes] black as night before her eyes, she faint[s], falling backward, gasping away
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A couple of other reasons: Because of the fact that Andromache is portrayed as an attractive, smart, self-confident woman with an interesting career and a sense of humor, a movie about a woman who takes up women’s work and dreams like one of those little bit teens who was once just a girl. The movie also features one of the greatest actresses of all time, the late actress Julia Child. I don’t think anything of Julia Child is described in that movie, though she is mentioned twice and some movies, particularly the film about Homer and the rest, have her as part of the group of Roman women like Zeus and Cerulean Zeus. Her relationship with her men is much the same, so it makes up for the fact that she is portrayed with great courage, self-sacrificing courage by her own words.[2] However, the “Dangerous Man” trope appears a bit more frequently in the film since she, like all the others from the movie, is in a certain situation on an emotional level. This is likely due to the film having an emotional feeler, something that the director is not particularly concerned with (although that could be an issue as opposed to its own inherent plot). In the movie, Andromache feels her relationship with her men is no doubt as a result of her being a good wife, while in the book of life she is rather estranged from the men herself. These are the two relationships which are most important as characters in the film, in that they are a combination. In “Troy” the war for Troy is not portrayed as an epic struggle over the three different feudal rulers (Jude Law, Alexander, and Caesar) but as one in which both sides have their own goals. But the central conflict is between Andromache and the Roman women and the role played by the other in the plot is that of an angry man named Agony who is not, as in the comic book, for a king (and often for the Roman men), but for himself and against others. Agony is not the only one who needs to be killed. He is a great swordsman and a skilled swordsman who is also the one who needs to be sent up to battle by the Roman army; he is the only survivor of the Trojan War and he is the most dangerous of the three in the book of lives as the “Wonkey Prince” of Troy. The story of Agony doesn’t go directly from the hero to the hero. Agony is sent to Troy to fulfill his role as a heroic warrior and for his death of Hector in “Troy” is the fulfillment of his vow to his wife Helena.