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Literature and the Human Community
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19263 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1991 |
4,047 Words |
| Author
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Walter Poznar
Walter Poznar is professor of humanities at Saint Leo College,
Florida. He has published numerous articles on higher
education and literature. |
Much has been written about the "me" generation of the 1980s. What needs to be understood is the relationships we have with others, surely a lesson on acquisitive society should heed. One way of understanding that interrelatedness, what is called in Moby Dick our "mortal inter-indebtedness," is a closer reading of the world's literary classics. From Homer down to our own time, literature has consistently stressed those ties that bind human beings to one another, to the past and to the future. This "mortal inter-indebtedness" is a given in all societies. It cannot be wished away because its ties help define who we are and what we ought to be.
One of the most memorable scenes in Homer's Iliad occurs at the conclusion of the poem when the aged Priam, king of Troy, asks Achilles to return the body of his son, Hector. What is remarkable about this encounter between an angry Achilles and the sorrowing Priam is the scrupulous way in which Homer reveals all of those human relationships and obligations Achilles has either forgotten or rejected.
As Priam notes, Achilles also has a father to whom he owes his life and his loyalty. Achilles, by refusing to return Hector's body, is violating one of the most sacred of all obligations. He is tarnishing his reputation, leaving a disgraceful memory that will live forever among those who follow him. He is allowing rage to cloud his reason, forgetting his debts to others. Achilles begins to realize that he does not stand alone, answerable only to his own thirst for revenge. He is a man among men, linked to the past and to the future, a mortal, not a god.
The power of this scene is a fuller awareness of that interrelatedness, meant not as a rebuke to Achilles but as a reminder of a crucial fact about his own humanness. To violate that interrelatedness is to violate life itself and what Achilles means to his family, his friends, his followers, his own honor. When he and Priam weep, they are weeping at their common fate. Though Priam is an enemy, he is both a king and a stricken father whose loss must be honored. Priam tells Achilles:
"Remember, godlike Achilles, thy father--remember how,
Like me, at the dismal door of age he
too is standing now.
Him too his neighbors harass, it may
be, in their greed,
And none he has to defend him,
...
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