The Quarrel from my Side, Agamemnon
After my troops conquered some city and gave my chiefs some of the spoils, they gave me a girl whose name I didn't bother with remembering, but she was apparently a priest's daughter. This man had the gall to try and buy back his daughter with gold and acted like he was rooting for me. After he groveled before me for a bit, I became tired and told him: "Get out of here you stupid old man and don't come back or it will be worse, and you will never see your daughter again." I laughed to myself at the old man and how pathetic he was while he scurried off like the rat he was.
After that, the weather turned miserable and many of my men died, but thankfully I had plenty of them so it didn't matter, but eventually some bleeding-heart chief of mine decided enough men had died so they put together a meeting. For most of the meeting, I sat back and listen to the men moan and groan about the problems of dying and whatnot, but eventually my stupid prophet had the nerve to blame me of all people for what was happening and told me to not only give up the stupid girl but to give them a hundred animals. Of course, I told them what for, "I don't even know why I keep you around you useless prophet. Also, I don't even want the girl so send her back but none of the loot." I figured that would make the underlings happy and I could just find another girl anyway, but this Achilles has to keep whining and tries to say he'll pay me even more if I just give them some of my spoils. Since I am king and they aren't, I'll take my share when and where I want it, and in fact, I laughed a bit when I told them "If you all try to take what's mine, I'll take all of your loot as well." Achilles began to drone on and on again complaining, I wasn't too sure since I lost attention but I got tired of listening and having him even being near me so I told him: "I can replace you any day of the week and in fact I will. Not only that, but the girl you got is mine now, use this as a lesson to learn that I am large and in charge around here." I finally hit a nerve and he tried to be tough and pull out his sword, but I guess since I am so awesome he chickened out and couldn't pull out his sword. Afterwards, he had a tantrum and cried about something, trying to insult me and instead broke his own little play stick.
Author's Note: For this storytelling week, I used
The Quarrel from the Iliad. I decided to tell the story from Agamemnon's perspective because I found him to be very pompous throughout the Iliad and I figured he would be a very greedy, self-indulgent man who assumed everyone else was worthless. His own greed and pride was his hubris so I figured I would try to add a bit of input since he was still a fairly static character in the epic.
Bibliography: "The Quarrel" retold by Alfred J. Church, from
The Iliad (1907). Web source:
The Quarrel
It was a good idea writing this clash egos from the perspective of Agamemnon. You certainly didn’t do any favors for his character, portraying him to be even more stupid and stubborn on the inside than he is on the outside. As with your previous story, you really did a great job giving this narrative a distinctly modern feel, with liberal use of contemporary language and phrases. I really enjoyed this version, although I think it might have read a little more smoothly if you had separated the large paragraphs into slightly smaller ones.
ReplyDeleteYou state in your author's note that you portrayed Agamemnon as a pompous character, and you did a good job in depicting this in your own story telling. He obviously did not care for anyone but himself, and he was unafraid to let anyone know. The text is short and sweet, but you get all your points across in story and character build up. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI didn't read this unit but I am familiar with the story. I love that you took the same story but told it in a different character's perspective. I am always curious, pretty much every time I read any book, about what the story would be like if it was told in a different character's view. What would they see that the other characters didn't? What would they have been doing while the main characters were off being heroic and crap? How do the other characters see the main character? Very, very good job! I also love how your page is set up!
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