The Ancient world is a complex one where social and cultural customs can seem otherworldly. Historians have argued on the emotional responses of ancient peoples to child rearing and loss. Mark Golden argues in his article, “Did The Ancients Care When Their Children Died?”, that there is little evidence supporting that Romans and other ancient parents failed to care for their children or to mourn their loss. A child’s death is used as an example of tragedy throughout ancient texts such as those written by Herodotus and Thucydides. Parents took great measure to insure their children’s survival. This is seen in the use of amulets, dog dung, skin and teeth of wolves and many others to ward off diseases and other misfortunes. In his article Golden references Lawrence Stone’s argument that “affection and love were not to be expected in pre-industrial populations because high mortality made emotional commitment, especially to children, too dangerous for individuals and …show more content…
His first example is Xenocleia’s death for the grief of her eight-year-old son. Others have argued, like E. P. Thompson, that children are a necessity to mutual survival and that the more parents needed their children the more they mourn their loss. Golden has a problem with this theory. He doesn’t believe it to be that simple, referencing M. I. Finley’s, “Any Greek or Roman who reached the age of marriage could look forward to burying one or more children, often very small ones…in a world where such early deaths and burials were routine…intensity and duration of emotional responses were unlike modern times.” Children are seen to make little impact on society and therefore are rarely observed. In fact some are even buried within cities or even houses, therefore parents are not as devastated by their deaths. This is another problem for
In modern society, both the abstract and concrete representations of children are intertwined with the themes associated with happiness, innocence, ignorance, gullibility, and the allure of youth. But, if I may for a moment mimic Caroline Vout’s presentation of her arguments by asking, how does today’s current view of children differ from the non-linguistic representations of children in ancient times? If one was to rewind time while focusing solely on the exemplification of children in ancient Greek and Rome, they would discover that presumably there is a degradation of the importance of the child in society. The previously mentioned Caroline Vout supplies the fact that the great philosopher Aristotle believed that “[children were] virtually denied human status on the grounds of their diminished faculty of deliberation.” This thought process is obviously contradictory to the widely accepted opinion of children in today’s modern society. With the assistance of multiple sculptures, frescos, and drawings, Vout utilizes rhetorical questions to engage the reader in her arguments concerning the portrayal of children during the Hellenistic period.
As one of the most well known ancient Roman love poets, Ovid has demonstrated bountiful talents within his writing. When reading myths from his book titled Metamorphoses, you gain an enlightening insight of how he viewed mythology. To Ovid, love was the origin of everything. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that most of his poems relate to the theme of love. However, not all poets are the same and every re-telling of a myth has its own unique perspective. In this paper I will compare and contrast the myth of Medea in Euripides Medea and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 7. I will then explain how Ovid’s approach to love and loss correlate to his general approach to myth as a whole. I will support my belief with evidence from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 14.
The joy of conceiving a child is a beautiful thing. How is it that a man and a woman can come together and create such a creature? How is it that a woman can carry life in her for nine months? Many children are their parent’s joy. Even through the cries, the puke, the feces, and everything. Somehow we still find the heart love them uncontrollably. Many commercials show on television about children overseas dying due to starvation and diseases. What is a parent to do when they lose that very thing they created? What do they do when their son or their daughter is suddenly taken away from them or in more serious cases they die? Infant death is one of the saddest things that a parent can go through. I cannot even imagine the pain and the hurt that an infant death could cause towards loved ones. This is the situation we find in Dana Gioia’s poem “Planting a Sequoia.” In this emotional poem, the speaker describes the process of burying an infant loved one. The setting was in Sicily, which is an island in Italy. The poem is told from a father’s perspective. It addresses how the planting of a sequoia will continue to live and grow as a symbol of the first son’s birth, which is now dead. A sequoia is said to be one of the longest living trees and is said to live longer than humans. Dana Gioia was describing in the poem how when every other family member has died off, the sequoia, which is buried for the speaker’s son, will forever remain through generations.
Since the beginning of time, mankind began to expand on traditions of life out of which family and societal life surfaced. These traditions of life have been passed down over generations and centuries. Some of these kin and their interdependent ways of life have been upheld among particular people, and are known to contain key pieces of some civilizations.
Death is the end to the natural cycle of life and is represented as dark, melancholic and even menacing. The underworld is depicted as a murky and sinister realm where the dead are trapped in a world of eternal darkness. Ancient drama, however, defies the conventional perceptions and representations of death. Despite the foreboding associated with it, characters in ancient drama embrace death in its frightening glory, rather than face the repercussions of their actions, especially when their honor and pride are at stake. Deceit is also an integral part of ancient drama and characters, particularly women, fall prey to it and unwittingly unleash chaos that more often that, negatively impacts the lives of the characters. This paper demonstrates how gender biases can be interpreted from the depiction of death and the characters’ justifications of it in two of Sophocles’ plays – Ajax and Women of Trachis and also demonstrates how female deception leads to the death of the principal character(s).
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014).
In Ancient Rome, life was vital in every aspect. Continuing to the afterlife was even more imperative to the Romans. The families were very superstitious and believed that passing on to the underworld was sacred and ideal. Life was not always as great as it was made out to be in Ancient Rome; many conditions and problems created quandary in people’s lives. The final days of family members were highly regarded as were the burial customs, illnesses, and treatments and results.
Family roles in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome were a very important part of life.
In Antigone, death is a central theme that is consistently present throughout the entire play. In this particular passage, the chorus proclaims that man’s access to resources will allow him to continue to exist; however, as long as man exists, so will death – a fate that no amount of resources can help anyone escape. In this essay, I will explore the correlation and significance of this passage, and more specifically, the correlation and relation to death, with particular characters of the play. These particular characters each have a different relation and perspective of death, however, as the story progresses, I will discuss why their relation, perspective and the way that which they acknowledge death itself evolves and changes so drastically.
This idea talks about the different cultures three in particular; Greeks, Callatians, and the Eskimos. These three cultures are completely different from each other, the Greeks are very family oriented and believe that loved ones after
During the times of Ancient Greece and Rome which was around 400 B.C- A.D 200, most children under the age of seven according to the textbook were cared for by their mothers and extended family members.
When we hear the word “orphan” we imagine a child whose parents have both died tragic deaths. Indeed, there were plenty of these pitiable creatures in Victorian society – the living and working conditions of the poor were so unsanitary and crowded that diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis often spread unchecked, sending many of their victims to the grave (Czarnik, “Living Conditions”). However, children were often considered “orphans” if they had one surviving parent, had been abandoned by their family, or were forced out into the world because of overcrowding at home (Cunningham, “Orphan Texts”). In 1861, it is estimated that 11% of children had lost a father by the age of 10, 11% a mother, and 1% had lost both parents (Czarnik).
Death and love: inseparable through the course of time, transcending the ages– both Emperor Hadrian and Coalhouse Walker Jr. face them, and while one gains conviction and a purpose, even if that purpose is ultimately his own death, the other declines, never seeing that the death of his love could possibly serve a purpose other than simple grief and mourning, never understanding that, with time and action, “the future [could] once more [hold] the hope of the past.” (Yourcenar, 176)
It is inferred that the parents should take care of their children and have their best interest at heart. This however, is not the case in Greek and Roman mythology. The killing of ones own children, or filicide, was not viewed as negative upon in their era. The contemporary times contrast with the ancient Greek and Roman’s because it was justified to use any means necessary to obtain a higher status. The Greeks and Romans valued keeping a high social reputation and having respect for those of great power. The motherly union between their children conflict with the reality that the father strives to retain or gain control. These circumstances cause a tense bond between the members of the family. The strained parent to child relationship in Greco-Roman myths is prevalent in the fact that the parents are fearful of being overtaken by their children, and endeavor to limit their upbringing.
The most common fate of orphaned children was to be "adopted" by another family. This allowed for the orphans to remain a part of a fami...