Unit 8

English 201:    Masterpieces of Western Literature

Justice:Although other motives have been at work (especially the process of growing from adolescence to adulthood), the primary motive from the beginning of The Iliad to the ending of The Odyssey has been the search for justice or the struggle to see justice done.  Theories, principles & laws are not enough.  We want the reality.  The question then is whether justice can be done without violence.  Those most traumitized by the outrage (hubris/crime) are most likely to demand blood & nothing less.  Yet those who are comparatively unaffected may consider the act of justice as too harsh, too primitive, perhaps even inflicting a new wound on the criminal's children so that they will be incited to seek their own personal revenge & justice.  Can a balance be found?
     AK has all the power & none of the sophistication, insight, or empathy that is necessary to guide power so that it nurtures civilization.  PEN & Arete have the insight & empathy, but are powerless to do anything more than invite vicious & immature children to be ashamed of their primitive urges & casual violence.  The answer is the marriage of OD & PEN.  Theirs is a "late" marriage, suggesting that their alliance is less a matter of Eros & Kipris, & more the result of mutual dedication to values.  They have things in common, viz., fostering children.  Not just small children or even adolescents, but men & women who are as children in regard to the habits & manners of city life.
     The ending is interesting because Homer implies that his hope for civility is guarded.  Zeus promises to blunt the grief of parents for their delinquent, dead children:
24.500    we, for our part, will blot out the memory
              of sons & brothers slain.  As in the old time
              let men of Ithaka henceforth be friends.

But it is ineffective.  Athena/Mentor immediately thereafter advises TEL, in order:
24.523    to put cheer in his [OD's] son:
              TEL,
              you are going into battle . . . .
              I count on you
Athena also gives power to Laertes, thereby aiding him to slay Antinoos' father, Eupeithes.  When the opposition yields, Athena demands peace & Zeus:
24.560   dropped a thunderbolt
             smoking at his daughter's feet.

Reason apparently needs force/violence.  There is no escaping marriage by imagining that we can live in Phaiakia.  We can lock up everyone that looks like AK.  But the timid little boys grow up to be twisted & vicious gang members slinking out to follow the likes of  Eurymakhos.  The Aryans who parted company with the Greeks to wander into India dreamed of adolescent Krishna whose worse crime was to steal butter/cream & irresponsibly play with the girls when he should have been doing his homework.  Even gentle Krishna grew up to counsel Arjuna to slay his uncles & cousins in a civil war.  Mahatma Gandhi was gunned down.  Indira Gandhi was gunned down.  Rajiv Gandhi was blown to bits in the land were it is an outrage to kill Helios' cows.  In our world, Athena must wear armor.

Aeschylus takes up this paradox, putting his hope, not in the wise man & woman, but in the institutions dedicated to justice.

Click on the next section: Explication above.