I Need a Hero
Instructions This essay should be a 500-750 word essay focusing on the assigned readings from Week 2. It is due by 11:55 pm ET on Sunday of Week 4. This should be a close reading essay, and should use as evidence primarily passages from the story or stories that you discuss. You may not use ANY outside sources without the instructor's approval. The essay should be in MLA essay format (see the sample essay here) and should have the student/teacher cover letter (which should answer these questions) as the first page. A works cited entry and in-text citations for each text discussed are required. The essay should be focused on making a debatable claim about the work(s) in question; informational essays or essays consisting of summary are not appropriate. The claim should be supported with discussion of specific passages from the text(s) on which the essay is focused. The essay grading rubric can be found here. DISCLAIMER: Originality of attachments will be verified by Turnitin. Both you and your instructor will receive the results. Choose 1 of the following topics, and write a thesis-driven essay in response to that topic: I Need a Hero! In our discussion of these works, we have talked a bit about how they all reflect elements of their cultures, particularly through the way that heroes are depicted. Choose 1 story (The Iliad) and make a claim about what this tale shows us about heroes in this culture. Discuss no more than 2 characters from your chosen story in order to support your claim. Final Draft Checklist All essays for LITR 201 should: • Have, instead of a title page, a cover letter that answers the questions specified below • Be in MLA manuscript format • Contain correctly formatted MLA-style in-text citations in the form of both signal phrases and parenthetical citations • Contain an MLA-style Works Cited list of all works cited in the essay • Be saved as a .doc or .docx file (NO .wps files, please!) with a file name formatted in the following style: YourlastnameFirstinitial_Unit#Essay.doc Essays missing one or more of these elements will lose points. Cover Letter Questions Please answer all of the following questions in paragraph form; give as much detail as possible to help me understand how you went about writing the essay. This will allow me to better tailor my feedback to help you. 1. What assignment prompt did you decide to respond to and why? 2. If the prompt allowed you to choose what works to write on, which work or works did you choose and why? 3. What do you feel are the strengths of your essay? 4. What parts of the essay do you feel are weaknesses or areas that could use more work? 5. Are there any particular parts of the essay on which you would like more feedback?
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Dear Prof. L-T
The paper seeks to show how heroes were viewed in the cultural setting of the tale of Iliad. More specifically, I chose the character of Hector to show how the heroes were supposed to behave and how they were regarded by society. Writing about heroes in the culture of Iliad, I chose the character of Hector because he had several options to choose from and each choice represents how much of a hero he wanted to become and the lengths he was prepared to go through. Hector had several opportunities where he could have escaped from his situation and lost the label of hero, but he chose to remain and die gloriously and obtain the status of a hero in society.
While writing the text, I placed an emphasis on how Hector sought to conform to the societal view of a hero. The paper analyzes the choices made by Hector and his final decision that cost him his life but gave him a favorable social status. Although the text is adequate, it could have benefited with a longer description and argument of the situations that Hector uses to demonstrate his desire for a favorable status in the society. I would like the professor to examine the introductory part of the text to inform if it appeals to the attention of readers and gives the relevant information concerning the proceeding text.
Sincerely,
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I Need a Hero
In the Iliad, the tale portrays heroes according to what they believe about their world and their place in it. Heroes have to be strong even in the face of death and even though they would rather not fight and die, they accept war as inevitable and death as a possibility. Indeed Sarpedon tells Glaucus in the text that a thousand shapes of death confronted them, and no mortal man could flee. He then advises Glaucus to either go forward to die and give the glory to another man, or win it for themselves (Silva 128). The hero in the text is expected to sacrifice his life for the cause of war. The conviction they hold is evident in their religious attitudes. They worship gods who would wage war forever. They worship gods with a clear recognition of their grim fate even when the gods do not turn a favorable eye on them in military affairs. For example, when the Achaeans are trounced by the Trojans in battle, Aegemnon does not regret the sacrifices that he had made earlier to the gods, rather he believes that on that particular day the mind of the god Zeus had changed (Silva 132).
It is with the understanding of such tragic deaths that characters in the play have to adapt to the cultural understanding of heroes. Such understanding depicts heroes as men who can stand up in front of battle lines and confront his mortality courageously and without fear for as long ...