Is Achilles Wrong In The Iliad

In the Iliad, Achilles faces a moral dilemma when killing Hector. After fatally stabbing him, Achilles, along with his troops, mutilates the body, drags the corpse around on the back of his wagon, and leaves him to the dogs. Given that Hector had killed Achilles’ close friend, Patroclus, along with countless of his comrades, it may seem that Achilles was right to be angry. At the same time, Achilles’ blatant disrespect of Hector’s body and family, brings up the question of whether he was truly doing the right thing. Aristotle’s discussion of anger sheds further light on the virtue of Achilles’ action by considering different factors of Achilles’ action and how they fit relative to the mean. With this lense, Achilles’ actions were not virtuous since …show more content…
Two of these forms are irascibility and sulkiness and they relate to control over anger and duration of anger. Irascible people miss the mark by having a deficiency of control. They “get angry quickly, with the wrong people, at the wrong things, and to a greater degree than they should [...] they do not repress their anger” (Aristotle 72). Rather than controlling their anger, they are overcome by it. This causes their anger to spike quickly and since they do not leave time to think they are likely to express it in the wrong way. Sulky people, on the other hand, utilize an excess of control. Sulky people “remain angry for a long time, because they repress their spirit. It stops, however, when they retaliate, since revenge relieves their anger” (Aristotle 73). This state demonstrates the dangers of not taking action in accordance with that anger, as only action, in the form of retaliation, can prevent this state. It also demonstrates that there can be an excess to how much control is used to repress emotions. To be virtuous, a person must find the mean of control as well as duration of anger between the irascible and sulky