The Madness within Heracles
When reading Euripides “Heracles”, I found that the representation of Heracles to be an accurate way of representing him. Heracles son of Zeus is presented as an uncontrollable murderer when he is forced by madness to kill his wife and children. Though he does commit these actions the real question in this myth is who fault is it that Heracles committed these actions. As can be seen within the story Iris daughter of Hera bring Lyssa who is the goddess of Madness to Heracles after he completes his 12 trials. Iris then forces Lyssa to lead Heracles to madness which causes him in the end to kill his family. The real question is who fault is it Hera for causing the madness or is it the fact that the madness already…show more content… This can first be seen in when Heracles comes back from the underworld and finds that Lycus plans to kill his wife, children and family; overwhelmed with anger and rage unable to listen to his father ideas but only wants to complete the task of killing the man who would threaten this family as Amplitron states “it is your nature, my son, to be a friend to your friends and hate your enemies. But don’t be overly eager.” (Eur. Her. 585) I found that this statement really puts forth an idea of Heracles personality in what his father says that it is normal for him to be kind to friends and to be horrible to his enemy’s this showing it is normal for Heracles to make harsh and let his anger get the best of him. Then when looking at how Heracles first asks when he is put under madness never does Iris demand that the people he envision be the children of Eurystheus when she ask Lyssa to make Heracles go made which leads me to believe that these were thoughts he already had and in the quote where he says to his father “Father why do I sacrifice with purifying fire before killing Eurystheus and have twice the trouble” (Eur. Her. 936-937). This passage to me shows that Heracles had thoughts about killing Eurystheus before madness was unleashed within him because never did Lyssa or iris talk about the idea that Heracles…show more content… That Lyssa unleased madness that already existed within Heracles resulting in his actions. I believe that this can be seen within his personality that when returning and finding out what Lycus had planned to kill his family that his first reaction is to kill Lycus and that after completing the death of his family his father’s believes that madness is within him and that all the murder he has done has lead him to this darkness. Along with his choice to kill within the trails and how his main way of dealing with conflict within the twelve conflicts is to rely on the murder of his victims even if it is unnecessary and without valid reason. Then after waking up to find out what he has done Heracles reaction is that it’s not Hera fault but his own, he sees himself as the murder and believe that he should die for his action and even in not blaming the gods for what has happen he even believes that the gods will not even forgive him for his actions and for that he should end his life. This to me proves that Heracles is the one to blame for the death of his family and that the madness released unleashed by Lyssa was madness that existed within
