Monsters In Greek Mythology

First Thesis pretty much says that monsters always are symbols and representations of culture. “The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment of a time, a feeling and a place.”(Monsters

The characterization in The Siren song is subtle, yet creates apparent characters with specific desires and goals. Without knowing the true facts of a siren, the poem specifies that the siren has a sinister secret to unveil to someone. They are willing to barter this secret for their freedom from a particular island, surrounded by other cruel beings like them. They would like to sing them a song, one that has sent others to their deaths. If you know the true nature of the sirens, you would likely know that these hopes and desires are all to create the illusion of someone to save, instead of someone who would bring you to your immediate. Their goal is to tempt you into throwing yourself overboard to hear their “secrets.”

Emotions and feelings are very tempting to give into. The Sirens are beautiful women who lure sailing men in by tempting them with this voice. They

Sirens in mythology are defined as beautiful, destructive creatures -either half woman, half bird or half woman, half fish- that obtain power by luring sailors to their deaths, causing their ships to crash on the reefs near

He gives more explanation of the pop culture refe rences, however, than he does of his more esoteric and academic precursors. This means that he expects that his audience is more familiar with the theory surrounding monsters than with m any of the pop icon monsters that have appeared throughout history. Cohen builds a strongly logica l argument that monsters are symbolic of the marginalized groups at the outer edges of c ulture, and in doing so he makes it clear that he feels his audience is well-rounded, academic , well educated and as interested in the theory of monsters as he is himself. Logos is not the only rhetorical device Cohen uses in this article, however. He also uses ethos to connect with his audience, and to differentiate bet

Popol Vuh and The Odyssey are epic stories that are considered, “cultural touchstones; they dramatize the life of a nation and help bind it together” (Lawall, 3076). The two stories both form a connection to the culture of Mayan, Popol Vuh, and Greek, The Odyssey, partly through the monsters that preside in each epic. Because of the detailed descriptions of monsters or evil people and the known information pertaining to each story’s culture, the two can be connected. Therefore, Popol Vuh and The Odyssey are comparable by cultures through the monsters that each story depicts.

One of the most interesting qualities of Greek mythology is probably the depiction of monsters in the myths. However, these monsters are not all unique. In fact, they all fall into very distinct categories, making them almost the same. Most monsters in Greek mythology look and act in the same ways. Several monsters from these myths look the same in that they have very similar qualities such as being large, snake or human like. However, they are also very alike in that they behave in very similar ways, from guarding something or roaming freely and causing chaos. Generally, the monsters in Greek mythology follow this outline and are depicted in a way to show these qualities.

“As monstrous races faded from popularity, the increased focus on unnatural or monstrous individuals added new interest in the long-standing philosophical and theological debates about whether or not monsters could be human and where monsters fit within God’s ordered universe […] philosophers and theologians in both the medieval period and the Renaissance often interpreted these monstrous individuals as carrying a specific meaning for the community into which they were born (Wright 6).”

The monster is developed throughout the story by way of meticulous and personified writing, painting a picture to bring the monster off the page and into the reader’s imagination. For example, “Something with a dragging tail, with scales, with great clawed feet, and I knew it had no face. (198).They all believe they see it and feel it around them. “It is breathing it Its frenetic struggle to each me, to rend and tear me, to imbue my soul with terror.” (193).

In Greek mythology, sirens were sea nymphs who used their sweet song to lure mariners to their death. The nature of the sirens and their origin story prove that most women, in Greek culture, were a depiction of someone who will seduce men and lead them to their doom. Women were the givers of life in an age when the processes of conception, fertility and childbirth were still deeply mysterious and little understood. With this, men wanted women to have a limited role in Greek culture because men feared the power that women have. Even though there were powerful female figures, like Athena and Aphrodite, the majority of women is represented as what men fear and made sure women had a limited role in Greek mythology and society. In Greek culture women were perceived as beautiful creatures who will seduce men, but have nefarious intentions, and the myths of women in Greek culture proving that men always feared the power that women could have.

In Blake and Cooper’s “Haunting Boundaries”, they argue that monsters come in many shapes and sizes, yet have an identifiable difference which separates them from humanity, while at the same time showcasing the diversity of humankind. Firstly, they utilize the etymology of the word monsters to demonstrate that there was a time when monsters were used for more than fear in stories. The Latin word monstrum, which means monster and a portent, derives from monere, or to warn. In mythology and religion, monsters functioned as warnings, such as in Greek mythology, monsters warned of the power of the gods. As warnings, Blake and Cooper state that monsters can be beneficial to humanity by teaching moral lessons through their stories. Scholars also connected monsters to miracles by

The Sirens in the Odyssey represent more than just a maritime danger to the passing ship. They are the desires of man that he cannot have. The Sirens can also be construed as forbidden knowledge or some other taboo object. Whatever these singing women actually are, the sailors are wise to avoid them. As usual, the wily Odysseus cheats at the rules of the game by listening to their song under the restraints constructed by his crew.

A little girl screams in fear for her parents as she envisions a green, three-eyed monster lurking under her bed, waiting to get her until she finally closes her eyes. A little boy scares fellow trick-or-treaters as he’s dressed as a vampire for Halloween brandishing his pointy teeth with blood dripping out of his mouth. Both of these examples of monsters focus on the physicality of a creature and undermine the weight which the word ‘monster’ actually carries. In Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, and in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, there are characters that perfectly fit the description of a tangible monster. However, monsters are more than their somatic features. Monsters are created within based on circumstances, decisions that are

In The Odyssey, monsters like the Sirens, Scylla, and Polyphemus provide “new and interconnected methods” of defining what it means to be human (Cohen 7). The Oxford English Dictionary defines a monster as a “creature which is part animal, part human.” According to this definition, Odysseus becomes monsterous when he gives into the animalistic part of himself. When Odysseus meets the Sirens in Book 12, they immediately sense his presence and knew everything about him. They know how to draw on his insecurities and how to tempt him to come closer. He is also distracted by his sexual desires when he is first introduced to Circe. She draws out more sensual and carnal qualities of him, which is arguably more animalistic. All along the way, Odysseus is hesitant to explore new places because of his inherent biases and fear of the unknown. The monsters in this epic help reveal all of these aspects through Odysseus, As a human, he is always subject to weaknesses like fear, distractions from women like Circe, and bias which causes him to have preconceived notions of the foreign.

For the context of this paper, a monster is “something extraordinary or unnatural, any imaginary creature that is large, ugly, and frightening” (OED). A faun is described as,“one of a class of rural deities; at first represented like men with horns and the tail of a goat, afterwards with goats' legs like the Satyrs, to whom they were assimilated in lustful character” (OED). Another important term is a labyrinth. A labyrinth is defined as “ a structure formed by paths bordered by high hedges, typically as a feature in a garden” (OED).