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)
Circumstances of Birth
 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 Zeus
for 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 and
uncontrollable 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 his
children.
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
Archetype: The Villain
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: 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.
Archetype: The Hero
 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.
Archetypal Situations
Hera
 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
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.
Motif: Guilt and Redemption
 A motif from Hercules is Guilt and Redemption. Hercules is devastated
after he went mad and killed his three sons and Princess Megara
unwillingly.
 He is told that his actions were due to Hera,
however he feels responsible and guilty, and
insists on being purified by an Oracle.
 After consulting Eurysthesus, he is ordered to complete The 12 labors,
in order to redeem himself and be granted forgiveness and justice.
Themes
ONE BIG LESSON . . .
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 . . .
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.