This time round, I want to chew over fears that we have inborn and acquired. What prompted me to write up this subject is to read Iliad the great, ancient Greek epic poem which was traditionally attributed to Homer. Among the characters of the poem, the most attention-grabbing character is Paris according to my opinion because I wonder what leads him to behave cowardly during the Trojan War. Hector – his gallant older brother- has extremely a different personality from Paris in the matter of fighting, and despite the fact that he disgraces Paris for showing as the white feather, he never hates him. The question that I want to ask why anyone else be scorned by virtue of being coward or be aggrandized on account of being audacious.
Some of us were born as a coward person and some of us were born as a brave. Some are not born to be a fighter or some are born to be a great fighter. Indeed, Paris is reluctant to battle from the time he was a child and he was always a naughty boy who appetites for doing the things that are heart-warming. Despite knowing how to fight effectively with a bow and arrow, he lacks of fighting with a sword or spear. Because his individuality, he is always humiliated by almost the other characters in the poem. From a historical perspective, lacking of bravery can be sufficient reason to be humiliated because there were always wars and survive in that era yet hate fighting or born with no capabilities in the name of a war and fight should not be a reason to scorn anybody.
According to psychologists, fear is divided into two groups as a connatural and be learnt afterwards. It is proved that except acrophobia and acousticophobia, all the other phobies are learnt in the course of time . Principally, fear is an instinct that allow us to survive so it can be said that one of Paris’s fears is necrophobia - means fear of death. Therewithal, if anyone else experienced being criticized before, s/he is most likely to behave in the same way once again. We can say that Paris fears for both enissophobia –fear of being criticized- and necrophobia. The underlying cause of his actions cowardly is a fear that is learnt in time by his parents especially. He is used to be protected either by his brother Hector or Goddess of Love, Aphrodite in the poem so it can be understood that he did not know how to survive or how to fight effectively. Alexander, the other name of Paris, means “The Protected Man” because it was believed that he was protected by the Gods. Therefore, he only waits to be rescued in any case of danger instead of fighting.
Wondering why Paris is scorned or why he acts cowardly let me to search and teach plenty of information that I have never heard of before and reminded me suddenly one of Turkish idioms “ A coward’s mother does not weep.” If fear is an instinct that allow us to survive, this idiom backs up my thesis. indeed, Paris survives but Hector was killed while he was having a single combat with the great Achaean fighter Achilles, who is the protagonist of the Iliad. Hector fights knowingly that he will be defeated because he is aware how Achilles is an insuperable fighter. He chooses sort of being a hero and dies for military glory by leaving his family behind. Both his father Priam and his beloved wife, Andromache, deeply sorrow for a mightiest warrior and commander of Troy. Even if not the subject is heroism, at this point, it is time to ask the last question: To be a hero or to live as well as you live?
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