568 Homer
girlfriend of the dead boy, no one would ever expect
her to do anything to help the people who killed
him. Yet she does. She is willing to testify against
her dead boyfriend and her entire social group, to
help two boys she barely knows, one of whom killed
her boyfriend, just because it is the right thing to do:
unheralded heroism.
There is another powerful example of unher-
alded heroism in this story. Ponyboy’s oldest brother,
Darry, had the grades for college, but when the boys’
parents died, Darry had to make a choice between
college for himself and keeping a home together for
his younger brothers. Even with Ponyboy’s inability
to understand Darry in the beginning of the story,
he can see that Darry has sacrificed a lot, so that he
and Sodapop didn’t have to go to foster care. Darry
worked hard, sacrificing his own dreams and ambi-
tions, so that Ponyboy and his younger brothers
could fulfill theirs.
The story has a major act of publicly declared
heroism, yet it is not any more important than any
of the other less-heralded heroic acts. It creates a
pivotal plot twist that is essential to the conclusion
of the story but is equal thematically to the hero-
ism displayed by Cherry or Darry or many of the
other characters. In this novel, heroism symbolizes
the changes associated with growing up. As you
mature, you must take responsibility. You must do
this regardless of personal desires or peer pressure.
Through this story, Ponyboy (and hopefully the
reader) realizes that heroism, recognized or not,
requires the maturity to sacrifice.
Kathleen McDonald
HomEr The Iliad (800–650 b.c.e.)
The Iliad is one of two great epic poems attributed
to Homer. Little is known about Homer or the
composition of the two works, but The Iliad was
probably written between 800 and 650 b.c.e. It is
the tale of a brief period in the 10th (and final)
year of the Trojan War, as the Greeks are besieg-
ing the city of Troy. The war began when Helen,
the world’s most beautiful woman, ran away with a
Trojan prince named Paris. Helen’s husband Mene-
laus, together with his brother, King Agamemnon,
gathers the Greek armies and sails after Helen. The
Greeks’ greatest warrior is Achilles, who is joined
by his close friend Patroclus. Other major Achaeans
(another name for the Greeks) include Odysseus,
the cleverest man alive, and Diomedes, a fearless
warrior. The Trojans are led by their greatest warrior,
Hector, one of Paris’s brothers. Aeneas (who it is
said will later found Rome), Glaucus, and Sarpedon
are all key Trojan allies. Hector’s wife Andromache
and his father, King Priam, dread the war’s outcome.
The Iliad is the story of “the rage of Achilles”
(77). Agamemnon has taken Chryses, the daughter
of Apollo’s priest, as a prize. When Agamemnon
refuses the priest’s request for her return, the god
Apollo ravages the Greeks with a plague. Agamem-
non returns Chryses, but seizes Briseis instead (who
was Achilles’ prize). Achilles is enraged at this insult
and refuses to fight for the Greeks. Without him,
the Greeks are unable to win and both sides suf-
fer terrible losses. Eventually, Patroclus fights in
Achilles’ place and is slain, leading Achilles to seek
vengeance on Hector. Achilles slays Hector, even
though he knows that he is fated to die soon after.
Throughout the story, gods like Zeus, Athena, and
Apollo take sides in the fighting and scheme to
help their favorite mortals. The Iliad is a classic epic
of war, exploring a range of themes that include
death, fate, heroism, pride, and violence.
James Forddeath in The Iliad
The main subject of The Iliad is Achilles’ rage, and
the first few lines show that the cost of that rage is
death—“hurling down to the House of Death so
many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made
their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds”
(77). It begins with the plague sent by the god
Apollo, “and the corpse-fires burned on, night and
day, no end in sight” (79). Achilles’ mother Thetis
wails that he is “doomed to a short life,” but the
poem also demonstrates that all human beings ulti-
mately “have so little time” (91).
The gods play with human life in The Iliad. Zeus
sends a “murderous dream” to tell Agamemnon that
Troy is now his for the taking, when in reality his
army will be devastated (99). The armies gather for
a titanic battle, but instead Paris challenges Mene-
laus to single combat. Both sides pray for victory,