... The chronicle of the Trojan War, which emerged from the tradition of oral poetry (sung by bards who sung tales of the great heroes who had fought at Troy), is the tale of the seduction of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful women in the world, and the war that ensued as a result of her withdrawal from Troy. ... One such account of the mythology surrounding Helen of Troy and the conflict that ensued is the story “Cassandra” written by the German novelist and essayist Christa Wolf. Wolf’s rendition of the Homer’s “Iliad” is told from the point of view of the prophetess Cassandra, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. As Cassandra is on her journey to Greece to face her execution she recounts her tale from her point of view (in the form of a monologue) in a series of sporadic, non-sequential recollections. Though Christa Wolf’s “Cassandra” shares many similarities with the original tale of the Trojan War it is also rife with many dissimilarities. ... Not only does wolf degrade the positive characteristic traits of these celebrated Greek heroes but she also amplifies the deep-seated character flaws of these men reducing them to the appearance of brutes. ... The tendency of Hector to become emotionally carried away is transformed by Wolf into something resembling cowardice. In Wolf’s “Cassandra” Hector is shown as the reluctant warrior and an unwilling hero and participant in the Trojan War. Another disparity in Wolf’s tale is that the easily injured pride of Achilles and the rage that surges up when this pride is affronted is magnified to such grand proportions by Wolf that Achilles is reduced to nothing more than a bloodthirsty brute possessing many animalistic qualities.
In the “Iliad” of Homer Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae and the commander-in-chief of the Achaean army, is known throughout for his superior military skills, his majesty, his dignity and his physique (Homer said Agamemnon had a forehead similar to that of Zeus and a torso like that of Poseidon’s).
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