Herakles Character Analysis

In Greek mythology, Herakles is the hero who slays the monster Geryon. In Carson’s adaptation of the myth, Herakles is Geryon’s first love who later breaks his heart. They meet when both boys are teenagers and quickly become inseparable, eventually initiating a sexual relationship. Herakles is Geryon’s opposite: he is carefree, confident, and free-spirited. While Geryon wants intimacy and understanding, Herakles has a more casual attitude toward sex and finds the commitment and closeness Geryon desires to be oppressive. Their differing ideologies create friction in their relationship, since Herakles never tells Geryon what he’s thinking, nor does he have any interest in knowing what’s on Geryon’s mind. Herakles values personal freedom above shared experience and often acts at the expense of others. For example, when Herakles and Geryon secretly reunite on a trip to Buenos Aires when they’re in their twenties, Herakles betrays his new partner, Ancash, by initiating sex with Geryon. These opposite stances on freedom and love ultimately prompt Herakles to break up with Geryon toward the end of their visit to Herakles’s home in Hades, where he lives with Herakles’s grandmother and Herakles’s mother. The breakup devastates Geryon but appears not to affect Herakles. When the one-time lovers reunite many years later in Buenos Aires, they realize they are still attracted to each other. However, Herakles becomes annoyed when Geryon cries after they have sex, criticizing Geryon’s inability to separate emotional from physical intimacy, a problem he claims Geryon had back in “the old days,” too. Herakles’s cruelty and refusal to be emotionally vulnerable with Geryon make Geryon realize he no longer loves Geryon and, perhaps, never really knew him in the first place.