Blog Post for 04/13

One point that I have yet to wrap my head around in Philoctetesis the moment Heracles comes into the storyline at the very end. At first, I did not think much of it, however I was a little confused. Why would a new character show up at the very end of a story? For what purpose was Heracles added into the very last scene for with his lengthy speech for Philoctetes? I still have absolutely no idea. I thought that it was to kind of reassure Philoctetes, giving him a sense of hope that the gods were actually listening to him and that his pain was not ignored, however I think I was wrong. I don’t find any reason for Heracles to kind of just show up out of nowhere, when it is clear that just because Philoctetes agreed to leave the island and save the Greeks, he will not really change his mentality. The pride he had before, he probably will still have. Moreover, this scene was sort of out of place, and did not make much sense to me.