Death and its Personofication in Greek Mythology and Other Cultures

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Death “The fear of death is deeply embedded in us” (Cave 1). Death is something that everyone fears. As humans we like to believe that we are inhuman and that death will never affect us. It’s the ugly side of life that no one likes to think about. It doesn’t matter what race, culture, or region we are, we’ll all die. Many believe that when we die we go to heaven or hell, but what happens to our body after we are dead? Do we float on to parallel universe, or does our body just appear wherever we are destined to be. The grim reaper is what many of us believe is the carrier between the two worlds and the keeper of our bodies. The Grim Reaper is known as the personification of death. He comes for every person, like an hourglass hand waiting for the last drop of sand to fall. Many remember him in a long black cloak, with a tall razor sharp blade wait to cut through to your soul. His skull face is hidden underneath the droopy black hood. This view of the Grim Reaper was mainly adapted by Americans. The Greeks, believed that death shouldn’t be seen as such a horrible part of life, thus they named death Thanatos. Thanatos is the older brother of Hypnos (Sleep), who looks up to him. Thanatos powers only affects humans and not the Gods, which is what he wants to be. This angers him because he doesn’t want to limited in the people that he can to kill. Therefore, this makes Thanatos hate all mortals because of the God’s rejections to become one of them. Death and Sleep had to take care of Lycian prince Sarpedon. Prince Sarpedon was the son of Zeus, the king of the Gods, and his mother Laodamiea. He was the hero of the bloody Trojan War. Sarpedon fought along with the Trojans but he was stabbed by the Greek Warrior Patroculs. When the hero w... ... middle of paper ... ...ave been killed by the black plague. Death waits for Block, but Antonius stalls his life by challenges to a game of chess and Block loses. This shows a grimmer version of the Reaper, and how he can be deceitful when human test his powers. The Grim Reaper is a very complex character but, in today’s popular culture he is portrayed as a one dimensional character. His background information isn’t showed in movies, they chose to show the bad parts of him. This is many because it will give them a greater profit to portray the way he has been seen for thousands of years. If the true story of the Reaper was portrayed it will make people more sympathetic to him and he wouldn't been seen as the blame for Death. We as humans are terrified of death and therefore we need someone to blame it on and it would be lose if we took the time to get to know the monster, The Grim Reaper.

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