Achilles Selfishness In The Iliad

Achilles is a valuable Greek hero in Greek mythology. In the book The Iliad of Homer, Achilles is a selfish warrior. Many characteristics of selfishness are shown throughout the book. During arguments and persuasions, Achilles had shown several of the characteristics. Others are shown through how he had acted towards many other heroes and leaders. One way Achilles' selfishness was discovered was by having him not show a weakness. In other words, he did not want to show failure towards his purpose. If someone would ask for help, they would be feeling that it would not help much if they joined in, that would be showing weakness. For example, in book sixteen, Achilles would not go to the Achaean lines and help them (Homer, Book 16). He was …show more content…
A being who always needs it to be their own way or another is basically just showing how greedy they are. For example, in the beginning of the book, Achilles had decided to take action since Agamemnon would not. He called for an assembly of troops and upset the orders by doing this, he then attempted to withdrawal himself and the other troops from the Archean army (Homer, Book 1). He did this his own way, not by any orders from the commanders or anybody else, he decided he would take his own route and gather everybody …show more content…
In book sixteen, Patroclus had to literally beg him in order to wear his armor into battle, he did not really want to give it to him unless he really, really had to. Achilles had then given him a huge speech about how he was upset with how Agamemnon had treated him and how he was just going to leave it in the past. Which leads to another argumentative characteristic, having high expectations of what they would like from others. He had forgotten about how he would have received the wonderful gifts with Briseis and many other gifts, too. For example, in book one he had said, "Since, my mother, you bore me to be a man with a short life, therefore Zeus of loud thunder on Olympos should grant me honor at least. But now he has given me not even a little." (Homer, Book 1). He had taken everything he had for granted, but was still asking Zeus for more, which had shown how greedy he was. Although, in a way, Achilles is also self preserving. He did not want to get himself into any destruction or harm by going into war. Which explains why he did not want to go into battle so bad when others had tried to persuade him to. He wanted to stay alive instead of being speared and dying. He was basically wanting to preserve his life longer instead of going into battle with the Greeks and putting his life on the line. In a way, Achilles is both self-preserving and selfish. Although Achilles had shown a few characteristics of his personality that