Achille's Rage

In the Iliad, Achilles expresses an all-encompassing narcissistic rage, which blinds him to all human caring for many weeks or months. We may be inclined therefore to ask: What in Achilles' past could have led him to have such ruthless and overpowering rage? In attempting to answer that question and fathom the causes of rage, we might consider the psychodynamics of his relationship to his mother and her influence upon him.

Achilles' mother, the immortal nymph Thetis killed six of her sons as she thrust them into the fire, attempting unsuccessfully to make them divine. Finally, in her seventh attempt, with Achilles, she succeeded – but only in part. Because she grasped Achilles by his heels as she held him in the fire, his ankles were not sufficiently immortalized. As a result, Achilles remained vulnerable in his heels, where we could receive a mortal wound

What effect might this experience and divine parentage have had upon Achilles? Clearly, Thetis valued her own immortality and was so intent upon her children – born of a mortal father - also being immortal that she was willing to kill them in the process. Can we surmise here that she indeed disdained humanity and the facets of her children that were not immortal? Could she have imparted this shame to Achilles? Was she, in contemporary terms, a narcissistic parent, attempting to meet her own needs through her children, at their expense?

What influence might her behavior have had upon half human, half divine Achilles? Perhaps he wanted to believe that he was divine and superhuman, and experienced deep shame and humiliation in regard to his mortality and human limitations. Such shame could lead him to deep sensitivity in regard to feeling devalued – intense reaction to personal slights, difficulty letting go of violations and humiliations.

Often the narcissism of a parent leads to narcissistic vulnerability and rage in a child, who never feels valued for what he or she is, because he can not fulfill the parental ideal. Thetis' lack of appreciation and empathy for Achilles' suffering could also have influenced him developing a blinding self-centeredness, and callousness to the suffering he caused others.

Because of his rare, mixed heritage, Achilles may also have felt very separate from others, resulting in difficulty at times identifying with and caring for his comrades - except for Briseis and Patroclus with whom he formed deep attachments. In fact, his feelings for both were so profound that the threat of loss of each one sent him catapulting into maniacal rage. Here, too, we see indications of a young man who was not truly nurtured, who formed intense symbiotic bonds in an attempt to compensate for what he had never had.