Hector The Heinous In Homer's Iliad '

Hector the Heinous
In Homer’s Iliad, Hector is presented an intriguing character, a description that stems from a number of sources. First and foremost, unlike other main characters in the Iliad, including: Paris, Helen, and most of the important Achaeans, who all have histories, outside the Iliad that Homer’s audience was familiar with, Hector has no history outside of this story. We, the readers, are already familiar with Paris’ exploits, Achilles’, Agamemnon’s etc. but there are no tales of Hector’s life pre-Iliad. And of course, since Hector is killed in the Iliad, there are no tales of Hector’s life post-Iliad. It follows then, that whereas other characters may have been different in the past, and may yet change in the future, ‘Hector
As the rest of his army is retreating to the walls of Troy, Hector remains outside waiting to face Achilles in combat. He tells himself “So now, far better for me to stand up to Achilles, kill him, come home alive or die at his hands in glory out before the walls”(22.129-31), and with this Hector is able to partially redeem himself. Had Hector gone on and immediately fought Achilles, he would have finally corrected the dissonance between his values and his action, and achieved a total redemption. And yet Hector cannot follow through. Once again when confronted in a ‘real’ way with his mortality, Hector fails to live up to his standards and die for his glory. Hector again runs, this time from Achilles, scared for his life. Though Hector seems eventually commit to achieving glory even in the face of death “Let me die- but not without struggle, not without glory”(22.359,60), it is but a façade. At that point, Hector already knew he was fated to die, that he had “No way to escape it (death) now”(22.355). Once Hector accepts this truth, it is not difficult, or in his case, redeeming, to decide to charge at Achilles, it is more an act of deceit to the world than an act of ‘heroic
People will point to the interactions between Hector and Paris “Look, you people dying around the city…from this hateful war”(6.387-390) and Hector and Helen “My heart races to help our Trojans…”(6.430), and present the case that Hector in fact does have strong feelings towards his people. And these claims are correct; Hector does love his people. However, looking at statements like his response to Andromache’s request that he fight the Achaeans from within the city, “But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy…a coward”(6.523-26) and his assertion that “I’ve learned… to stand up bravely, always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers, winning for my father great glory, glory for myself”(6.527-29), and this despite the acknowledgement that “All this weighs on my mind too (referring to concerns about the potential death or enslavement of his wife and son)…”(6.522), it is clear that Hector places his concern for his own glory on a pedestal above his concern for his family. As such, even if Hector’s comments to Paris and Helen are taken as proof of Hector’s concern for his people (it could alternatively be interpreted as an expression of Hector’s desire to achieve glory in front of the people) it is clear that this pales in comparison to Hector’s concern for his own honor. Similarly, some people may highlight the reactions of Hector’s parents before his final encounter with Achilles