The Beard Makes the Man
For the ancient Athenians, the beard was a common sign of manhood. The coming of a beard signaled a male’s transition from boyhood into manhood. Men who lost their beards did not suffer loss of political rights or loss of privileges, but they were mocked and shamed. The beard, not height or body shape, interestingly, was considered the initial marker of manhood in the plays of Aristophanes. A beard is an easily recognizable and observable, and the lack or presence of a beard is easily changed for the stage by covering the actor’s beard with a mask or giving him a fake beard. The beard was clearly a particularly meaningful secondary characteristic for the Greeks.
For the ancient Greeks, the beard was incredibly closely tied to the idea of manhood. In some cases, the word for beard could even be interchanged with the word for man. Men grow hair on their faces, women do not, but a man’s facial hair is easily removed by shaving. For this culture, the removal of the beard was a removal of a crucial element of manhood. Without a beard, a man was woman-like, despite any other characteristics that might distinguish him as a man. To become like a woman, a man merely had to remove his beard, but to become like a man, a woman had to disguise herself in many more ways.
The beard, as a cultural way to distinguish men, is based on the biological phenomenon that males begin to grow hair on their faces during puberty. Despite seemingly being an easy way to separate men from women and children, the presence of a beard is not an all or none situation. A pubescent male will not go to bed bare-cheeked and wake up the next morning with a full beard. Puberty is a gradual process occurring over many years, and some men may never grow a completely full beard, even in maturity. As today, some women of ancient Athens must have themselves been quite hairy around the hair line, jaw, and upper lip. The beard is not as clear a man/boy or man/woman differentiation as it may initially seem. The beard is not a completely clear physical or biological trait, but it was clearly a significant characteristic for the ancient Athenians.
In Aristophanes’s play Women at the Thesmophoria, the kinsman of Euripides tries to pass for a woman by shaving his beard and singeing his pubic hair.
In The Bacchae, I believe that Euripides uses the relationship of male and female to explore the alluring concept of feminine empowerment in a patriarchal society and to demonstrate the cost this empowerment subsequently has on ordered civilization. In this paper, I will argue that Euripides uses the conflictual relation between the genders to criticize the role of women in Greek society while also showing the consequences of a total feminine revolt. Through developing this conflict, Euripides is demonstrating how the path to the most successful civilization is through a balance of masculine rationality and feminine emotional freedom. I will prove this by analyzing the positions of Pentheus, the Bacchants, and Dionysus throughout the play. The character Pentheus
During the land of Cathy merchants, they must be willing to adapt to the community. In the book the human record Pegolotti states that “In the first place, you must let your beard grow long and not shave, (HR, p.397) this explain how they all present themselves
A beard is used as a symbol of authority, such as in the lines "by this mustache and beard of mine" (249) and "by this white beard of mine" (261). This sort of oath and/or swearing over the beard seems to imply that there is something special about facial hair during this time. As discussed in the article, a beard represents qualities worth swearing over. Usually when someone has a beard it usually means that they are someone who is wise, and knows what they are doing and who you will most likely go to for advice. Charlemagne was someone that Roland thought highly of and he is someone that helped make Roland who he is and the hero that he has become
Corn tortillas are a very important component of the Mexican and Central American diet. They date back several thousands of years. However, there is no clear record of their origin. According to the Mayan creation legend, when the gods decided to create man they tried using different materials but the only material that worked was corn. Quetzalcoatl descended to Mictlán, the place of the dead. From there, he took some bones and went to the goddess, Coatlicue. The goddess grinded the bones together with corn, creating the dough that Quetzalcoatl turned into humans, thus Mayan men are “men of corn”. As the story demonstrates, there is a strong emphasis on corn and its by-products in this region. Ultimately, tortillas partake in several components of the biocultural framework that affect the nutritional status of this population.
Corn is one of the principle agricultures in the United States. King corn is a documentary film made by two college students Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis. They made this documentary in order to know more about the importance of the agriculture in American life. In fact, the interest of the two students in corn agriculture originated after the shocking results which show that the body of American people is made of corn. Moreover, the two students discovered that all products in American markets are made by corn, including meets where lambs, pigs, and chickens are fed by corn.
The beard, which was worn in full at the beginning of the twelfth century, was modified both as to shape and length. At first it was cut in a point, and only covered the end of the chin. But the next fashion was to wear it so as to join the moustaches. Generally moustaches went out of fashion. Beards were worn only by country people, who, desired to preserve a "remembrance of their participation in the Crusades." At the end of the twelfth century, all chins were shaved.
The Illuminati have been under the focus of conspiracy theorists for many years and they he been called the puppet masters who secretly pull the strings of the world’s events from elections to revolutions, and from business monopolies to stock market crashes. So what really is “The Illuminati”? It’s considered to be a secret society which has existed even before the Babylonian period as Cathy Burns says, "The signs, symbols, and inscriptions of Illuminati come to us from across long, drifting centuries and will be found in ancient Sumerian clay tablet libraries of the cities of Lir, Lagash, and others of the first true urban civilization. This occurred about 600 years before Egypt was civilized..."(40). However, it was formally established in 1775 under the name “Bavarian Illuminati” in Germany, by Adam Weishaupt to support women education and gender equality and to oppose the religious influence over public’s life. As this society’s views were deemed to be a threat to the government it was abolished in 1786 by the elector of Bavaria. It was revived again under another name and form all over Europe only to be dissolved again. Even though, it has been disbanded twice, it is believed that this group prevailed in the shadows and later formed a secret society with other motives and exists till date. These motives of this secret society are thought to be worshipping the devil, practicing strange rituals, witchcraft and alchemy and seeking to form a “New World Order” where it will be able to control all aspects of industry, society, healthcare, real estate, and finances. Although, a society with such far-fetched motives can be easily dismissed as fanciful rumors, but because of strange hand-signs and symbols, the numerous conspiracy the...
In my previous blogs, I came to a conclusion that remain indecisive as I have one point on why the Illuminati can still exist (my second blog) and one against (my third blog). In this blog, I will be investigating the first major event that the Illuminati may have played a hand in, The French Revolution. If they did play a hand, it would prove that the Illuminati did exist during this period in time.
As the class discussed in lecture, the myth created a personalized connection between the Native Americans and the Earth and allowed the Native Americans to identify with their landscape. Because they believed that corn came from recycled human flesh, they could see it as an animate, personalized being, rather than just an object. Merchant explains how the Native Americans also believed, because of the Corn Mother, that “the Earth would continue to regenerate the human body through the corn plant.” This shows that rather than just seeing corn as an object to cultivate, it was a sacred gift given to them by the land. Because the land gave the gift of corn to them, they believed the land should be treated with
The bitter debate of the illuminati is one that’s been going on for decades, but it never seems to see serious light. There have been conspiracy theorists who have claimed that there are ties to the Illuminati through politicians, musicians, government, celebrities, and even claiming that the dollar bill has “the all seeing eye” to be marked by the group. For a while I’ve always shrugged off the idea of the Illuminati, but as I grew older I started to think more about it. I started to wonder if there was any truth behind the conspiracy.
For the people of Mexico, it is more than that. Corn is sacred. Residents of an ancient Zapotec Indian town in Capulalpam De Mendez, Mexico are responding negatively biosecurity law passed by the Mexican Congress. This law recommended that Mexico reduce imports and properly label genetically modified corn so that farmers don’t plant it. The Mexican farmers argue that this will interfere with the free trade practices that existed way before their time and the idea of having natural corn that isn’t genetically modified on their farm land. The corn produced from the family's plot of land was always used for the cultural practices in Mexico and the residents believe that using something that is genetically modified will disrespect the practices and traditions that have been going on for thousands of
First, I will tell you about the conspiracy behind the Illuminati. The Illuminati was created by German thinker Adam Weishaupt in the 18th century (“Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati.”). He created this secret society that nobody knew about, making this a very prestigious group. Adam Weishaupt lived a very conventional life, very average, he went worked as a professor
As a ruler of the state one must be viewed as masculine and in control, however there are many examples in Euripides writing that leads one to believe deep inside he is not who he claims to be. One way in which this is evident during the play is that Pentheus is constantly negating his own viewpoints on masculinity and his outlook of women outwardly. However there are many actions he might not openly say that may lead one to believe he is confused about his gender identity. In the beginning of the play Pentheus criticizes the feminine appearance of Cadmus and Dionysus, however he finds himself dressed as a women and enjoyed it. Pentheus initially has a deep hatred for the women who abandoned their homes for the mountains to commit what he thinks are vile sex acts. Yet as the play progresses he becomes extremely curious about what the women on the mountainside are doing under Dionysus’ order and when the opportunity presents itself to spy on the women he is ecstatic. Pentheus makes it seem as if he needs to witness these women, not for the sake of the state, but for his personal voyeurism. His obsession with the women’s hidden behavior may reflect not sexual interest, but a desire to know more comprehensively a group with which he identifies himself as, but the social norms in society have restricted him from expressing. Between his
The heroic ideal presents a certain physique which ends up being applied to heroes universally, regardless of whether it necessarily makes sense. Rather than creating a unique appearance for each hero, they typically fall into two categories, bearded or youthfully beardless. Either way they’re shown in the nude, with well defined muscles and flawless skin, even in cases where a hero should have an iconic scar. This remains largely unchanged until the Hellenistic period, which explores realism to a higher
Obesity has numerous negative effects on the body throughout one’s life, especially when one has been obese for an extended period of time. The world’s life expectancy has been on a rise for many years now, but the increasing rate of obesity in the world is likely to change that. This paper is going to focus on how childhood obesity is supposed to affect a person’s rate of morbidity and mortality when they reach adulthood. Given what is known about the adverse effects of obesity, it isn’t difficult to assume that being obese as a child can greatly impact one’s health and risk for disease, both immediately as well as later