Although “The Iliad” is about the Trojan War, it is primarily about the war as it is affected by the

greatest warrior in the Achaian army—Achilles' wrath or anger. Achilles is the main character and his
inaction or withdrawal from the fighting is crucial to the plot. He is a complex warrior who sometimes
ignores the cultural norms of his society because he sees through some of its fallacies in particular. He
sees many of the faults in the often narrow and contradictory heroic code. He is invulnerable (except on
the heel) because his mother dipped him in the River Styx as a baby. Furthermore, no warrior comes
close to being his equal as a fighter.
Achilles has a strong sense of social order that manifests itself in the beginning in his concern for
the disorder in the Achaian camp. He wants to know the reason why a deadly plague is destroying the
soldiers. His king, Agamemnon will not act. Hence he decides to act. He calls for an assembly of the
entire army. In doing this, Achilles upsets the order of protocol because only Agamemnon can decide to
call an assembly, but Achilles does so to try to return order to the Achaian camp. He succeeds,
partially. He finds out why the plague is killing hundreds of Achaian soldiers, but in the process, he
creates disorder when it is revealed that Agamemnon is responsible for the deadly plague. Thus, Achilles'
attempt to return order to the Achaian camp does little, ultimately, to establish order. Apollo lifts the
plague, but after Achilles withdraws himself and his troops from the Achaian army, disorder still remains
among the Achaians. Agamemnon, of course, is as guilty of creating the ensuing disorder as Achilles is,
but Achilles seems petulant and argumentative. He is undermining the little harmony that does exist. In
his argument that Agamemnon receives all the best war prizes and does nothing to earn them, Achilles
forgets the valuable prizes that he has received. His rage even causes him to almost attempt to kill
Agamemnon, but the goddess Athena saves him from this deed.
It should be noted that Achilles does not leave the Achaian army without sufficient reason. When
Agamemnon demands to have the maiden Briseis, Achilles' war prize, Achilles sees this act as a parallel
to Paris' kidnapping of Helen — he sees himself in the same position as Menelaus. Consequently, the
quarrel between himself and Agamemnon is as righteous to him as is the war against the Trojans. But
even after Agamemnon offers to return Briseis, along with numerous other gifts, Achilles remains angry,
indicating that one of Achilles' major character flaws is his excessive pride. The gifts that Agamemnon
offers do not compensate for the public insult Achilles believes he has suffered. A concern for gifts, the
reader realizes, is far less important to Achilles than his concern for a proper, honored place in the
world. After all, Agamemnon had previously given gifts and then taken them back. He could do so
again, so the promise of more gifts is possibly an empty promise.
This idea of social status is in keeping with the heroic code by which Achilles has lived, but in his
isolation, he comes to question the idea of fighting for glory alone because "A man dies still if he has
done nothing." The idea developing in Achilles' mind just like Hector’s is that the concept of home or
family and the individual are both important to society and to a heroic warrior. Some critics see these
ideas slowly developing through Achilles' ability to relate to others on a personal basis. However, it is
only after Patroklos' death that these relationships and broader concepts of love begin to become
significant for him. Ironically, with the death of Patroklos, Achilles begins to see life and relationships with
other people from a mortal point of view, and at the same time, he is drawing ever closer to
the divine aspects of love. He has an obligation to avenge Patroklos' death and he realizes his own
shortcomings as Patroklos' protector. He also sees that his sitting by his ships is "a useless weight on the
good land," something that is causing the deaths of many Achaian warriors. Unfortunately, however,
Achilles is unable to see that the Achaians feel his withdrawal as keenly as he now feels the loss of
Patroklos.
 It is Achilles' anger, whether he is sulking or whether he is violent, that is paramount throughout
most of the epic. In fact, his battle with the river is probably one of the most savage scenes in
“The Iliad”. It shows Achilles' insane wrath at its height. On first reading, the scene may seem
confusing but it is important to the reader's view of Achilles and to the mutilation theme. Mutilation of
bodies and Achilles' excesses prompt the river god to charge him with excessive evil. He charges
Achilles with not merely killing, but "outraging the corpse." Homer so vividly personifies the river god that
he describes the battle between them as being a battle between two beings, even though, at the same
time, it is a vivid description of a man caught in a flood, literally fighting for his life. He over-reaches
himself. As he attempts to punish all the Trojans for Patroklos' death and to deny them burial rites for
Hector, the river god now attempts to drown Achilles, bury him in the mud and deny him glory and
proper burial rites. It is also significant that the river god is the only god to confront Achilles with
excessive cruelty and lack of pity.
Achilles' violence closes with the death of Hector and with Achilles' mutilation of Hector's corpse.
When the gods see Achilles’ act without any sense of pity for Hector or his family, they come back into
Zeus' all-wise fold of authority. And eventually, through his mother, Thetis, even Achilles is finally
persuaded to accede to Zeus' will. In the end, Achilles is exhausted. His passions are spent, and he
consents to give up Hector's corpse.