The Iliad ANDthe epic of Gilgamesh

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Depiction of the gods in Iliad
The Iliad portrays gods as trivial. The gods are involved in constant feuds which spills over to the human fraternity. Feuds among goddesses elaborate their beauty, which eventually spills over to human, after the goddesses’ approach to Paris to determine who among the goddesses was the most beautiful. Homer also depicts the gods as biased. The gods ultimately take sides during the Trojan war, based on their interests. Thetis favours Achileus, while Aphrodite favours Paris, based on their attachments to the humans. The gods are also portrayed as lustful, based on intermarriages between gods and Humans. Thetis’ marriage to Peleteus demonstrates the unlikely characteristic of the gods.
The gods play significant roles in the text which shapes the plot of the text. The gods divinely intervene in human activities. Khryses successfully lobbies for the assistance of Apollo, to send a plague to ensure the Acheans suffer. The narrator paints an image of the events and says,
“Now when he heard this prayer, Phoibos Apollo walked with storm in his heart from Olympos’ Crest, quiver, and bowed his back, and the bundled arrows clanged in the sky behind as he rocked in his anger descending on the sky behind as he rocked in his anger, descending like night itself (Homer 3).”
The gods control and deny humans’ free will. Aphrodite is angry at Helen for refusing to share Paris’ bed. Aphrodite threatens Helen so that Helen could tow the line.

Aphrodite says, “vex me, or I may let go of you and hate you as extravagantly as I love you now” (Homer 3, 442-443). The entire text illustrates the god’s desires to control the actions and thoughts of human beings. The gods demonstrate their fickleness based on their support for war heroes and not morals. The presentation of the gods reveals the gods as humanistic, portraying both physical and emotional frailties, which represent their divines as ebing both mortal and immortal.
Works Cited
Homer. The Iliad. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1995. Print.