Speech on The Underworld in Greek Mythology
The Underworld, better known as Hades after the god who ruled it, was a dark and dreary place where the shades, or souls, of those who died lived. In the next few minutes, I will tell you about how one came to die, the topography of the Underworld, and the beings whom dwelled there.
Your whole life was planned and plotted by the Fates. The Fates were the three goddesses who controlled the destiny of everyone from the time they were born to the time they died. They were: Clotho, the spinner, who spun the thread of a person's life, Lachesis, the apporitioner, who decided how much times was to be allowed each person, and Atropos, the inevitable, who cut the thread when you were supposed to die. When Atropos cut your thread you were dead and then you made your journey to Hades. Upon death, the shade is lead by Hermes to the entrance of the Underworld and to the banks of the Acheron.
There were five rivers that made up the Underworld. They were the Acheron (the river of woe), Cocytus (the river of lamentation), Phlegethon (river of fire), Lethe (river of forgetfulness), and the Styx (river of hate). This poem, written by an anonymous writer, was written about the rivers in the Underworld.
"Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow black and deep; Cocytus named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain."
When one would die, the family would place one obol, or a coin, under the deceased's tongue. This coin would pay as fare to Charon who would ferry the dead over the Acheron River. Charon is the ferryman who is often depicted as an old sulky man, or as a winged demon carrying a double hammer. Those who cannot afford to pay Charon were doomed to wonder the banks of the Acheron River for one hundred years. Guarding the Underworld was the three-headed dog Cerberus. He permitted new spirits to enter, but never one to leave.
When you arrived at the Underworld, three judges determined your sentence.
At this day in age we bask in the luxury of having easy access to advanced technology at our disposal. From the World Wide Web, to cell phones, music, movies and video games the human race has thought of any and everything to keep us entertained. Over the years studies have shown reasonable concerns regarding the long-term effects of video games. These games can desensitize gamers to real life violence, which is usually seen in the younger crowd. The studies especially hit on the games containing player-on-player violence. Though these games are extremely entertaining and can get kids to settle down for a while, if not properly supervised, they can produce adverse effects. Other studies have shown that video games can be used as way to yield positive outcomes such as, good problem solving skills, cooperation in a group and the ability to flow. Although there has been psychological research on children learning through the actions of others some believe that children are automatically able to distinguish between what is just a game and what is reality. The longer they are allowed on their game system the more they become convinced that their games are real. Some researchers believe violent video games can channel the aggression of the child but the parents are to blame for what happens to the child after playing an excessive amount over a period of time. Children can become preoccupied with these violent video games which have been proven to be the cause of poor social skills, uncontrollable aggression and a false reality.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
It is clear when reading the Aeneid that Virgil was familiar with the earlier works of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Virgil, more than just being aware of these earlier works, uses themes and ideas from these poems in his own. Far more than just copying scenes and ideas, Virgil expands and alters these themes to better tell his story, unique from the Greek originals he is drawing from. Virgil reveals what qualities he regards as heroic through the juxtaposition of Aeneas’ character and the negative aspects of the underworld. By looking at which qualities are esteemed and derided respectively, we can identify the qualities that Virgil would like to emphasize positively to his readers. Also, we can argue that Virgil is indeed trying to convey a particular set or morals to those readers. Beyond the underworld, it is possible to clearly identify these traits in the other sections of the poem where Virgil is borrowing and making his own alterations. Using these distinctions we can very clearly derive Virgil's morality from the poem, and see where Virgil's ideal characters veer away from the Greek ideal that came before.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton anthology of English literature. 9th ed., A, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Pp
Mistakenly, Shadow was given the gold coin by a leprechaun named Mad Sweeney. He went to Laura’s grave and tossed it in her casket as she was being buried. She had awoken and visited Shadow saying that she had a “call” and needed to see him. In Greek mythology, a coin was given to the ferryman of Hades, Charon, to carry souls of the newly deceased across the Styx and Acheron rivers. The coin was his payment and it would be placed on the mouth of the dead. The gold coin being thrown into Laura’s
Aeneis's first contact with a soul in the purgatory of the Underworld is Palinurus, who died after falling from one of Aeneis's ships. Aeneis is at the mouth of the river that flows through hell with his guide the goddess Diephobe and Charon the ferryman. Palinurus is waiting to be ferried to his place in the Underworld, so he can begin his thousand-year purge. He pleads with Aeneis's party to take him along, but Deiphobe scolds him: "Shalt thou, unburied, see the Stygian flood, / The Furies stream, or reach the bank unbid?" (107). In Vergil's Underworld one must have had a proper burial to gain a position. This serves as a warning to Romans to give their deceased a proper funeral, less they remain in hell longer.
Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and the Mythology of “Elysian fields” in lines one through three, she leads the reader to the assumption that this is a calm, graceful poem, perhaps about a dream or love. Within the first quatrain, line four (“I wove a garland for your living head”) serves to emphasise two things: it continues to demonstrate the ethereal diction and carefree tone, but it also leads the reader to the easy assumption that the subject of this poem is the lover of the speaker. Danae is belittled as an object and claimed by Jove, while Jove remains “golden” and godly. In lines seven and eight, “Jove the Bull” “bore away” at “Europa”. “Bore”, meaning to make a hole in something, emphasises the violent sexual imagery perpetrated in this poem.
Dante’s Inferno is a narrative poem, with a very complicated rhyme scheme, originally written in Italian. It documents the author’s, Dante, trip through hell, where he learns how hell is organized and the way in which sinners are punished. Dante is guided by the great poet Virgil, who leads him throughout hell. The Odyssey, is an epic authored by the Greek, Homer. The epics centers on Odysseus’ protracted journey home. The protagonist, Odysseus, visits the underworld for a very short amount of time. The two literary works contain many common elements, such as characters being punished, the protagonists interacting with those in the underworld, repeating characters, and the misery of the underworlds. There are also differences between the two works including the types of interactions between the protagonists and those they encounter, the reasons for each protagonists visit to the underworlds, and how the underworld operates. These differences and similarities can be attributed the Dante’s and Homer’s religion, the time period and culture in which they wrote their respective works, and the purpose for the visits to the underworlds in each work. Although there are many similarities between the underworlds in Dante’s Inferno and The Odyssey, the two works ultimately offer two different visions of the underworld due to the authors’ different religious beliefs and culture, as well as the role of the underworld in each literary work.
The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
These repeated words show the reader that the narrator identifying himself as a “colored” man is sincerely shameful and desires to abandon his colored race. In addition, the word choice of debating, shame, forsake, and inferiority in the context conveys a feeling of negative categorization to the reader while the narrator is talking about the African American race. This projects the narrator’s idea, which is carried throughout the novel, that being a “colored” man in society is looked down upon and shameful. In the beginning of the novel when the narrator is conversing with his mother for his true identity, there is a sense of shame as the narrator says, “ She must have felt that I was examining her, for she hid her face in my hair…” (8). Also when the narrators mother talks about his white father, a positive sense of categorization is delivered as the mother says, “ No, I am not white you- your father is one of the greatest men in the country- the best blood of the south is in you” (8). These two quotes early in the novel connect to the narrator’s general idea that being an African American in society is categorized as shameful and negative while being white is classified as the “best” and “great.” This idea is relevant to the social issue of racial
Few would disagree that witnessing the assault of their mother is a very disturbing experience for children. However, not all children living with domestic violence witness the direct physical assaults on their mother but they will be acutely aware of the abuse she suffers. Children do not have to directly witness any violence to be profoundly affected by it. There is a wealth of research which has highlighted the negative impact witnessing domestic violence can have on children. Abrahams (1994) found that ninety one per cent of the mothers within her research thought their children had suffered negative effects due to domestic violence. Furthermore, eighty six per cent believed these negative effects continued into adolescence.
In the Greek myth, Orpheus has to travel through the five rivers of Hades (Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Styx, and Cocytus) to retrieve Eurydice from the overseer of the underworld, Hades. In Black Orpheus, Orpheus does not travel through the actual rivers, but in my opinion, symbolic representations of them. The obstacles that Orpheus faces while trying to find Eurydice, could possibly be the representation of the rivers.
...s despair in accepting that his and his lover's fate was to grow "As weary-hearted as that hollow moon" (38). The fact that this line, and not a happy, upbeat ending, closes the poem further emphasizes the tragedy.
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck,” wrote Percy Bysshe Shelly in his poem, “Ozymandias.” This theme of destruction also forms the basis of Lord Byron’s poem, “Darkness.” Although each poem has a very different narrative, tone and plot, they reflect fears about the legacy of human influence and the destruction of civilization. The common theme of destruction, found in Percy Bysshe Shelly’s poem “Ozymandias” and Lord Byron’s poem, “Darkness” reflects the poets’ shared fears about the future by writing about ideas of civilization, the fall of mankind due to nature and natural instincts, life and death.
Today’s youth is heavily influenced by the media. Video games, television, and movies make up a large part of the lives of children in America. These easily accessible forms of entertainment are lightly regulated by parents and the government; children and adolescents are exposed to extremely violent media everyday. “By the time the average American child reaches seventh grade, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. Some people say so much violence on television makes American society- including its children- more violent” (“Causes of School Violence” 1). Among the violent media, video games are the current trend. Although video games are rated by ESRB (the entertainment sof...