I was watching an episode of the greatest show on television, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, when I noticed a sort of parallel to Troilus and Cressida. In the episode three friends were working as a team to solve something, what they were trying to solve is not important. What is important is how they tried to solve it. They realized that each of them had something to contribute and they could each serve a ‘role’. The self-proclaimed handsomest of the group was designated, “The Looks”, with the smartest of the three being, “The Brains” and the crazy, unpredictable one serving as “The Wildcard”. Though not directly comparable, it did make me notice how in the Trojan War characters seemed to serve roles in similar ways. On the Achaean side of the war, many of the participants appear to have very distinct roles. Ulysses, with his intellect and wit, plays the part of “The Brains” while Great Ajax, with his size and strength serves as “The Muscle”. Achilles, because of his volatile nature, can be pegged as “The Wildcard”. In the show, the friends recognize that they must stick to their roles in order to succeed. In the Trojan War, they seemingly do so unintentionally. Ulysses constantly serves as the voice of reason, Ajax is good for nothing but fighting and Achilles can never be controlled or told what to do.
As is becoming custom in these blogs, everything can be related to the sports world. On every great sports team, people have their roles. Take, and this might anger a few of you, the San Antonio Spurs for instance. For almost a decade now they have been considered the closest thing to a dynasty in the NBA and their players have very distinct roles. Players like Bruce Bowen, who provides as a defensive specialist and Brent Berry, whose only asset is his ability to shoot threes, fill important voids for the Spurs. Without people to serve such roles, it’s hard to say they would have enjoyed as much success as they have over the last ten years.
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8 comments:
Can i petition for more varied analogies, other than just sports? Good grief.
i do like your comparison with Ulysses, Ajax, and Achilles (especially the comment about Ajax being good for nothing but fighting). i think it's really pretty accurate; Ulysses definitely serves as the brains of the Greek army. Though Agamemnon is intelligent as a commander, he is not the cunning and crafty thinker Ulysses is. i'm not sure that's what an army needs, though; i think the Greeks are much better off with Agamemnon as their commander.
Something that is worth noting is that you are comparing Shakespeare to a sitcom. Ultimately, they are very similar. Like a sitcom, Shakespeare establishes big time personalities, hoping that their situations bring out conflict. That is the main basis of any good sitcom. When the characters interact, the problems either bring laughs or cries, usually ending in a cheesy lesson.
The difference between Troilus and Cressida and The Iliad is that the characters' feelings and attitudes are more evident in Shakespeare's play. Like you say, Ulysseys is the brains, Ajax is the muscle, and Achilles is the wildcard. However, in the original text, there is more ambiguity to these characters, but Shakespeare takes these people and gives them these roles to create a captivating play.
Responding to your San Antonio Spurs comment, Bruce Bowen has another job on the team; to play dirty and try and injure other teams' best players! Anyways, besides that sentence I think you make some good points in your comment. Obviously Shakespeare was pretty popular, so it makes sense that his styles would rub off on other facets of literature. Afterall, television is just another form of literature right?
You make some great points. In many situations in our society people are given roles to fill (or roles are assumed by people under perceptions of our society). Your connection from the television show to our text and then back to the spurs was very interesting.
if you think about it from the perspective of a playwright, author, etc., having characters that all bring something different to the table makes a more interesting and compelling product. So Shakespeare and whoever came up with It's Always Sunny do this for the audience. Of course there is also the idea that Greek gods were roll players themselves, so it makes sense that Homer's characters would have similar qualities.
I agree. You wouldn't want some of your Generals being dumb like Ajax, and you wouldn't stick Ulysses on the front line to go get killed (although maybe in the Illiad they did b/c he was carving stuff up, but tactically, they shouldn't have). Roles are another form of tactics, whatever you can to win.
I like the comment about the three characters finding their niche and all being integral parts to the teams success. What is important here is the idea that mikey brought up about a country need to be a group of team players. In the Acheaen situation, these three "superstars" all fit perfectly to better the team, when there are in fact three superstars who all want to play the "looks" a problem occurs.
AWESOME show. This is very true about the characters in the Iliad. I believe that Homer would not have any characters change their "identities" a.k.a The Brains ect.... It is hard enough to predict what The Wildcard will do, and if Homer had say Ajax become The Brains, and Ulysses The Muscle then it would have made the book do a complete 180. Everybody's role in the Iliad played a huge part on the book's outcome and the way that Homer had the characters in their roles was great.
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