Aeneas And His Fellow Trojans example essay topic

The novel Aeneid, written by Vergil is great story of Aeneas the son of Trojan Prince Anchises and the goddess Venus, Aeneas has valiantly defended Troy until it was burnt down by the Greeks after ten of war. Now the oracles prophesize a destiny for him as the founder of the city state Rome, where he must lead his son Ascanius, as he is called and the remaining Trojans, who have fled their city's ruin. The characterization, setting, theme, plot, and symbolism are all important parts of analyzing this novel. Aeneas the son of a mortal Trojan Prince Anchises and the goddess Venus, Aeneas has valiantly defended Troy until the Greeks burned it down after ten years of war. "O Queen! By Heaven ordained to found This city, and curb the unruly tribes with law!

Thee we poor Trojans, blown o'er every sea, Implore. O save our ships from shameless fire!" (I. 14) Aeneas rapidly keeps asking Gods for to help him and his group out. Aeneas is pictured in the Iliad where he is rescued repeatedly by the gods. His depiction in this tale is a little more noble. Aeneas is empowered by the gods with the task of leading the Trojan refugees from their destroyed city to Italy where they will make the beginning of an empire. His status as a hero is different than the status of the Greek heroes.

Aeneas is a social hero. He is responsible not only for winning his own glory but also the glory of his father and son, representing the past and the future. His failure with Dido and his slaying of Turnus reiterates that he may be the son of a god, but he is human. He does all the great things of the Homeric heroes: he wages war; gets lost at sea; and travels to the underworld. His endeavors, however, are controlled by a strict fate that constantly redirect his attentions. The Aeneid takes place in the aftermath of the Trojan War, about 1000 B.C., this Roman epic traces the journey of the last Trojan warrior Aeneas.

After the fall of Troy, Aeneas is entrusted the task of founding a new city in Italy. So, the epic traces his course from Troy in Anatolia, Turkey to Italy. The epic starts however with unfavorable winds driving the ships to Carthage in North Africa, when they set out from Sicily. Fleeing the attraction of Dido in Carthage the ships stop by Sicily again on their way to the mainland of Italy where they land at the mouth of the River Tiber in Latium after visiting the Sibyl at Cumae.

Within the Aeneid, there are many themes contained in the text. One of them is the The Sufferings of Wanderers. "Where drift my mind so oft by madness warped?" (XII. 228) The first half of the Aeneid tells the story of the Trojans' wanderings as they make their way from Troy to Italy. Ancient culture was oriented toward familial loyalty and geographic origin, and stressed the idea that a homeland is one's source of identity. Because homelessness implies instability of both situation and identity, it is a form of suffering in and of itself.

But Virgil adds to the sufferings of the wandering Trojans by putting them at the mercy of forces larger than themselves. On the sea, their fleet buffeted by frequent storms, the Trojans must repeatedly decide on a course of action in an uncertain world. The Trojans also feel disoriented each time they land on an unknown shore or learn where they are without knowing whether it is the place where they belong. As an experience that, from the point of view of the Trojans, is uncertain in every way, the long wanderings at sea serve as a metaphor for the kind of wandering that is characteristic of life in general. We and Virgil's Roman audience know what fate has in store for the Trojans, but the wandering characters themselves do not. Because these individual human beings are not always privy to the larger picture of destiny, they are still vulnerable to fears, surprises, desires, and unforeseen triumphs.

In the Mediterranean Sea, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans are sailing in flight from their home city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They are headed for Italy, where Aeneas is destined to become the founder of Rome. As they near their destination, a fierce storm throws them off course and lands them in Carthage. Dido, Carthage's founder and queen, welcomes them. Aeneas relates to Dido the long and painful story of his group's travels thus far. Aeneas tells of the sack of Troy that ended the Trojan War after ten years of the Greeks besieging Troy.

In the final campaign, the Trojans were tricked when they accepted into their city walls a wooden horse that, unbeknownst to them, harbored several Greek soldiers in its hollow belly. He tells how he escaped the burning city with his father, Anchises, his son, Ascanius, and the hearth gods that represent their fallen city. Assured by the gods that a glorious future awaited him in Italy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their journey.

"Laws, homes I gave; when from the tainted sky On human limbs a sudden sickness fell, A blight on trees and crops, a year of death" ( . 43). Twice they attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens and plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed them, but they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly. Finally, after the loss of Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they made their way to Carthage. Impressed by Aeneas's exploits and sympathetic to his suffering, Dido, a Phoenician princess who fled her home and founded Carthage after her brother murdered her husband, falls in love with Aeneas.

They live together as lovers for a period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to set sail once again. Dido is devastated by his departure, and kills herself by ordering a huge pyre to be built with Aeneas's castaway possessions, climbing upon it, and then stabbing herself with the sword Aeneas leaves behind. As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead Anchises.

The women, tired of the voyage, begin to burn the ships, but a downpour puts the fires out. Some of the travel-weary stay behind, while Aeneas, reinvigorated after his father visits him in a dream, takes the rest on toward Italy. Once there, Aeneas descends into the underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, to visit his father. He is shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of Rome, which helps him to understand the importance of his mission. Aeneas returns from the underworld, and the Trojans continue up the coast to the region of Latium. The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins peacefully.

King Latinus, the Italian ruler, extends his hospitality, hoping that Aeneas will prove to be the foreigner whom, according to a prophecy, his daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. But Latinus's wife, Amata, has other ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor. Amata and Turnus cultivate enmity toward the newly arrived Trojans.

Meanwhile, Ascanius hunts a stag that was a pet of the local herdsmen. A fight breaks out, and several people are killed. Turnus, riding this current of anger, begins a war. Aeneas, at the suggestion of the river god Tiberius, sails north up the Tiber to seek military support among the neighboring tribes. During this voyage, his mother, Venus, descends to give him a new set of weapons, wrought by Vulcan.

While the Trojan leader is away, Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his countrymen thick in battle. Pallas, the son of Aeneas's new ally E vander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies into a violent fury, and many more are slain by the day's end. The two sides agree to a truce so that they can bury the dead, and the Latin leaders discuss whether to continue the battle. They decide to spare any further unnecessary carnage by proposing a hand-to-hand duel between Aeneas and Turnus.

When the two leaders face off, however, the other men begin to quarrel, and full-scale battle resumes. Aeneas is wounded in the thigh, but eventually the Trojans threaten the enemy city. Turnus rushes out to meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas nearly spares Turnus but, remembering the slain Pallas, instead finishes him off. Fire symbolizes both destruction and erotic desire or love. With images of flames, Virgil connects the two.

Paris's desire for Helen eventually leads to the fires of the siege of Troy. When Dido confesses her love for Aeneas to Anna, her sister, she begins, "I recognize and the signs of the old flame, of old desire" (IV. 58-59). Dido also recalls her previous marriage in "the thought of the torch and the bridal bed" (IV. 58). Torches limit the power of flames by controlling them, but the new love ignited in Dido's heart is never regulated by the institution of marriage, "the bridal bed".

The flames she feels do not keep her warm but rather consume her mind. Virgil describes the way she dies in the synonymous terms "en flamed and driven mad" (IV. 65). In concluding the characterization, setting, theme, plot, and symbolism are all needed criteria parts to analyzing this novel.

Virgil intended the Aeneid to be a justification of Rome's greatness. He wanted to detail Rome's history and give it an illustrious founding. However, Aeneas's final act indicates a man consumed by his own impious furor, and rather than providing a noble conclusion to the epic, it suggests that Rome was founded by an enraged man. For this reason, Virgil's intended message and his apparent message are at odds with one another.

Thus, the ending of the Aeneid is left unresolved..