Homer's antiwar attitude

Homer's anti-war attitude in the epic

The greatness of Homer is not in his artistry of style and plot construction, but above all, in his knowledge and portrayal of human personality and behavior. He touches upon almost all basic human emotions and motives. He created about forty great characters of universal scope who are individuals to a certain extent.

The personalities of the characters are not described by Homer, but must be deduced by the reader from their actions and words. They are living human beings portrayed with divine qualities, limitations, and contradictions of real people.

Homer has a broad human understanding, showing sympathy for the suffering Trojans. Though the common man is largely disregarded, he expresses the dignity and joy of life, but also tragedy and sadness, especially the inevitability of death.

Homer's original audience would already have been intimately familiar with the story The Iliad tells. Making his characters cognizant of their fates merely puts them on par with the epic's audience. In deciding to make his characters knowledgeable about their own futures, he loses the effect of dramatic irony, in which the audience watches characters stumble toward ends it alone knows in advance. But Homer doesn't sacrifice drama; in fact, this technique renders the characters more compelling. They do not fall to ruin out of ignorance, but instead become tragic figures who go knowingly to their doom because they have no real choice. In the case of Hector and Achilles, their willing submission to a fate they recognize but cannot evade renders them not only tragic but emphatically heroic.

At the end, we can say that Homer doesn't describe this war to make a novel, but he just wants to express his emotions and feelings with those warriors who are killed through this tragic war.