From Nil: Action as a Response to Mortality

It is apparent that Odysseus and Achilles have chosen two pathways as a response to algining themselves with their impending mortality-as warrior, and as a servant to their community.

Like Achilles, Odysseus realizes that death is a distinct possilbity in his battle at Troy. Although neither hero welcomes death, the glory that would be achieved with dying in battle is a cultural code which cannot be ignored. This notion, is however short-lived in the mind and conscience of Achilles. Achilles reflects on the true cost of battle after the death of Patroclus in his sonnet immediately prior to re-entering the war. He again reiterates this in his meeting with Odysseus in Hades when he reappears in The Odyessey. Although Achilles realizes the futility of his life as a warrior and understands that death is looming near, his obligations as a soldier outweigh the obligations he feels to himself as a mortal man.

The second pathway is cloesly linked with that of the first. Both Odysseus and Achilles are compelled to enter the war at Troy because of their sense of community, that is their sense of responsibility to Agamemmnon and Menelaus. They are called upon by these other kings and their moral obligation precludes any sense of mortality that either may feel. Achilles re-enters the war after the death of Petroclus as an act of revenge, but he returns the body of Hector as an act of service to the community. Granted it is not his community, but his hand in the destruction of this community again links him morally to its well-being.