Hercules Vaishnavi, Ruchika, Sarah, Dhruvik, Elizabeth

Heroic qualities Strengths  He is a God  Strength  Kind heart  Selflessness  Valor  Endurance  Adventurous spirit Weaknesses  Lack of intelligence  He doesn’t have good temper management...(which was Hera’s fault but caused great damage)

 Hercules, was born in Thebes, and is the son of Zeus(God) and Alcmene(mortal)  Zeus disguises himself as a mortal when he was with Alcmene  Hera was very angry about Hercules’ birth from another women and gets mad at Zeusfor having an affair with Alcmene.  Hera made Hercules life a living hell  Once Hera cast a spell on Hercules which made him into a fit of madness anduncontrollable rage. Hercules was immensely tall and strong and skilled with weapons,and with his madness, no one could oppose or control him which led him to slaughter hischildren. Circumstances of Birth

The 12 Labors  Due to Hera’s anger towards Zeus, she wanted to take revenge on Hercules by driving him to do mindless and crazy things.  During Hercules’s next heroic act, he succeeded in conquering the Minyans, and the citizens gave him the prize of Princess Megara. When she had 3 children, it drove Hercules mad.  Hera became jealous of the affair and brought madness upon Hercules. He ended up killing his wife and his sons.  However, he had no idea of what happened and how they were killed. He was shocked and upset and asked Apollo for help.  The oracle told him he would have to serve Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for twelve years, in punishment for the murders, by completing the 12 Labors.

12 Labors  1st Labor: Was to kill the lion of Nemea, weapons could not wound the lion so Hercules choked it.  2nd Labor: Go to Lerna and kill the Hydra, a creature with nine heads. His nephew, Iolaus, helped Hercules by bringing him a burning brand which was used to sear each neck to prevent it from growing again.  3rd Labor: Bring back a stag with golden horns alive, that lived in the forests of Cerynitia. The stag was sacred to Artemis, hunted it for a year before capturing it.  4th Labor: Capture a great boar on Mount Erymanthus. On his way to hunt the boar, Hercules stopped to visit his friend Pholus, a centaur who lived in a cave near Mount Erymanthus. Hercules then asked for wine and when Pholus had opened the jar, it attracted the other centaurs, that then became drunk on the undiluted wine and started to attack. Hercules then shot them with poisonous arrows, and then learned from another centaur, Chiron ( immortal), on how to capture the boar, which was to drive it into thick snow.

12 Labors (Continued)  5th Labor: To clean the Augean stables in a single day. Augeas had thousands of cattle and stalls that had never been cleaned out. Hercules diverted the courses of two rivers and made them flow through the stables to clean the filth.  6th Labor: Drove away the Stymphalian birds, which were a plague to the people of Stymphalus. Athena helped him by drawing them out in the open, then Hercules shot them down.  7th Labor: Go to Crete and retrieve a bull that Poseidon had given Minos.  8th Labor: Get the man-eating mares of King Diomedes of Thrace, killed the Diomedes first then handled the manes.

12 Labors (continued)  9th Labor: Brought back the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Hera caused trouble by making the Amazons think that Hercules was there to kidnap their Queen, Hercules killed Hippolyta and got away with the girdle.  10th Labor: Brought back the cattle of Geryon. Geryon was a monster with three bodies living on Erythia, set up a memorial between two rocks, first called pillars of Hercules, but are now called Gibraltar and Ceuta.  11th Labor: To retrieve the Golden Apples from the garden of the Hesperides. While Atlas gets the apples, Hercules holds up the weight of the world. Atlas then gets tricked by Hercules to take back the world, and Hercules escapes with the apples.  12th Labor: Objective was to get Cerberus from Hades. He frees Theseus from the Chair of Forgetfulness along the way. Pluto gave Hercules permission to take Cerberus with his bare hands only, Eurystheus makes him return Cerberus back to Hades

Other adventures and mishaps  Hercules fights Antaeus, a Giant, and he kills him by strangling him in the air.  Fights Achelous (the river god) and wins by grabbing a hold of Achelous’s horns and snapping them, and in turn Hercules wins Deianira’s hand in marriage.  In Troy, Hercules rescues the daughter of King Laomedon, and kills the King because he refused to pay back Apollo and Poseidon.  Hercules punished himself for killing a friend, and went to Lydia to become a slave to the Queen Omphale.

Admetus and Aclestis, The Underworld  The three Fates had spun all the thread for Admetus and were to the point of cutting it, his wife, and Aclestis agreed to take her life in order to save his.  Hercules stops by Admetus’ house on his way to Diomedes, and Admetus tells him that he is mourning a woman of his household, who was to be buried that day. While conversing with the servants, Hercules finds out that it was Aclestis who was dead. He then goes to the Underworld, fights Death and returns Aclestis back to Admetus

 Hera can be portrayed as the villain in the story of Hercules.  She drove Hercules insane and made him do undesirable actions that caused harm to himself and others.  She helped in guiding Eurystheus in thinking of the almost, impossible challenges and assisted in harming Hercules throughout his journeys. Archetype: The Villain

Archetype: Snakes When Hercules was an infant, his mother snuck to his crib at night and put in 2 snakes. Before, the snakes could kill him, Hercules killed both of the snakes with his bare hands, and played with the limp bodies. Since snakes represent the archetype for evil, it shows that Hercules can conquer the deadly and the evil and has enough strength to defeat things that should be much stronger than him.

 Hercules conquered the 12 labors, and his great strength makes him an obvious hero.  However, the reason he preformed these heroic tasks was to gain forgiveness for his murders. Archetype: The Hero

Archetypal Situations  Supernatural intervention with the gods: Hera uses magic to distort Hercules's mind. Apollo bestowed difficult tasks on Hercules and put him through twelve years of hard work. Athena assists Hercules to drive out the birds that caused a plague.  The Task: Hercules had to complete the 12 years of labor Hera Apollo Athena

Examples of stupidity  Hercules thought that his strength could solve any problem.  Once, Hercules was so hot, that he pointed his arrow to the sun and threatened to shoot it  Hercules often let his rage take over, and then had to endure the punishments.  He had perfect confidence that not even death was his match.

Deianira, Nessus, and Iole ;Hercules’ death Deianira, Nessus, and Iole:  Hercules was married to Deianira. Once, a Centaur named Nessus gave a potion to Deianira, and said that it should be used when she needed to preserve the love of her husband. Deianira becomes very jealous of one of Hercules’s captives, Iole, and decides to use the potion. Hercules’ Death  Deianira slipped the potion in his robe. Hercules immediately felt immense pain and started to suffer. Then, Deinira saw what she had done and felt horrible, and ended up killing herself.  Hercules then goes to Mount Oeta and builds a funeral pyre there for her.  He gives his bow to Philoctetes and then burns his own body... ending his life.

 A motif from Hercules is Guilt and Redemption. Hercules is devastated after he went mad and killed his three sons and Princess Megara unwillingly.  After consulting Eurysthesus, he is ordered to complete The 12 labors, in order to redeem himself and be granted forgiveness and justice. Motif: Guilt and Redemption  He is told that his actions were due to Hera, however he feels responsible and guilty, and insists on being purified by an Oracle.

Themes  Being strong isn't everything. Madness can lead you to destroy all that you cherish.  Even if you have mighty strength, but you can't control your mind, you are still vulnerable.  Greek culture has always admired strength and pride but too much of anything may end up with dreadful results  Point to add: Hercules only had his power and didn’t have maturity... He acted like a child... ONE BIG LESSON...

Summation  Hercules is considered the greatest Greek hero of all.  He is the strongest man who has ever existed, and therefore he considers himself something of a god.  He is half-god, a son of Zeus.  Supremely confident, Hercules showed his brute force from a very early age, when he wrestled a snake that had slithered into his baby cradle.  Hera is jealous and sends Hercules into insanity.  Hercules marries Princess Megara and had 3 children  He goes through a series of tasks/ journeys/ adventures (12 labors)...  His other wife gets jealous and tries to kill Hercules but then she commits suicide and Hercules chooses to end his life after his wife dies.