In the still, smoke-filled air of the family shrine the oil lamp that sat at the base of the terracotta statue of Demeter, flickered. The flame sputtered on the wick, threatening to go out. The white robed figure kneeling in the center of the room, as still as the statue, broke her vigil and lifted her head at the change in light. Sad, dark eyes fixated on the sputtering light and then lifted up to the shadow wreathed face of the goddess who lost her daughter annually before returning to look at the flame with a tense air of expectancy. Was it an omen, this light that would sputter and go out? Or was it simply the fact that the family fortunes had dipped so low that not only could they not afford the bribes that would save their only …show more content…
Two-headed, scaled, the head of a bull, the body of an alligator, metal limbs that worked with the alchemical machinery that had allowed Nikostratos to conquer the whole world. No one agreed on what it looked like and there wasn’t even a consensus on whether it was real or not. So many in the city, Melantha included, who believed the monster was nothing more than myth and that the true monster resided half a world away in his luxurious palace which was stained with the blood of the conquered world.
She supposed, wryly, that she would soon know for certain if she was right.
Beyond the door of the family shrine she could hear the household waking up. Her mother’s strident voice, tinged with tears, barking orders to the servants woke everyone who had not yet risen. It was not the morning song she would wish to be her last in the house that had seen her birth, but little had gone the way that Melantha had wanted. She stood and blew out the guttering lamp, mercy for the wick.
An all-night vigil had given her no insight into her fate, the gods had not spoken though she had not expected them too. The vigil had been at her mother’s insistence. She wanted her daughter purified enough so that when she died in the black depths of the labyrinth, she would find her way more easily to the Elysian Fields where a draught from the river Lethe enough to wash away memories her horrible death. Melantha had no such intentions. There was no
had to wear some old shoes that he had at home. Gold did not like this
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells the story of Demeter, the goddess of fertility of grain. Demeter has a daughter with Zeus by the name of Persephone. The hymn explains the strong bond between Demeter and Persephone and how distraught Demeter is when her daughter is abducted. This traumatic event causes Demeter to live among mortal men disguised as an old woman and withdraw the fertility of the earth. In this paper, I will examine how the Homeric Hymn to Demeter operates as a charter myth, or narrative that explains modern practices, and how successful the hymn is in conveying the modern practice.
As she passes the ruins she recreates the pleasant things that had been there. Despite the reasonable arguments that her goods belonged to God and whatever God does is just, there is in the poem an undercurrent of regret that the loss is not fully compensated for by the hope of the treasure that lies above. (84)
Smoke billowed into the air, shrouding everything in darkness. The village homes, once lively and full of love, now are demolished and engulfed in the flames of death. The dragon spewed bright orange inferno which devoured everything in its path. The beast, flying in and out of the blanket of darkness, displayed its wings that obscured the stars, which normally radiated incandescent light. Villagers could see that it would not stop until their whole world was reduced to ash. Light from the fire illuminated the creature’s hateful face; its scales shadowed with the color of ripe plums, glowed violet in its luminous destruction, eyes beaming a malevolent crimson, specks of gold in the iris flicked like the treasure it so viciously collected. Its scornful intentions could be seen in the reflection of the conflagration it had so wickedly constructed.
Any good story needs characters. Characters help move the plot along, and also could be used to reinforce the theme. The contrasts and similarities of the characters make the story interesting. One writer who uses the relationships between characters in his stories is Jack London. Specifically, Jack London’s “To Build A Fire”, the characters of the story, the man and the dog, move the plot along.
The author of A World Lit Only by Fire is William Manchester. This book was written in three chapters. In the first chapter he starts to talk about the dark ages between A. D. 400 and A.D. 1000. He begins to write about this time period were there are no survivors left to be offended. This author attempted to write this book to defend an unpopular view among historians that the medieval world was backward in the terms of culture, religion, and technology. This world was destroyed by the blossoming of confidence in reason and the progress of art, literacy, astronomy, geography, and theology. In the first chapter the book is speaking about Manchester’s conception of the medieval mindset.
The short story "To build a Fire" by Jack London, tells about the relationship between man and nature. The story takes place in the Yukon during one of the long night. The main character who is unnamed travels with a dog along a small trail to a mining camp. The man leaves against the advice of a local and after a short time realizes that he should have waited. The temperature is extremely cold because the mans spit freezes before it hits the ground. The main obstacle of his journey is the many covered springs that mean death to whoever falls into them. The man sends his dog in front of him to make sure that the trail is safe. Eventually the dog falls into one of the springs and gets his paws wet.
“Words of Fire,” by Anthony Collings, details the lives of different journalists in regards to free press and covering potentially dangerous stories. Anthony Collings is a former CNN reporter who shifted his focus from reporting to telling the story of journalists who have come under fire in a power struggle between government and free press. Collings puts free press into a spectrum, on one side there is the United States, where the press is largely free, and on the other side there are places like North Korea or China where press is largely restricted by the government. Collings does not focus on these extremes, but rather the places in the middle where there is an ongoing struggle between state power.
19. Magellan's discovery of the Philippines was significant because it proved the world was round.
Memoirs of war often reflect the positive or negative experiences endured throughout battle. Considered by many to be one of the best memoirs of World War I, Hervey Allen’s “Toward the Flame”, recalls his own experiences of battle. His recollection of events shows that he had a negative image of war and that there was nothing glorious about it. What started out looking like a man’s greatest adventure turned into a shell-shocking reality that war is actually horrible and trying. Allen’s experiences with consistent hunger, mustard gas, and artillery shellings led to his disillusionment with war, and left him with a permanent hatred of battle.
Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.
A King of Jesters The world is filled with humour. It’s everywhere. Whether it’s staring someone directly in the face or hiding in the shadows, it’s there. In Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov, humour is buried within. The humour is created by the differences between John Shade and Charles Kinbote.
This is one of the greatest distinctions of the mother archetype. To associate Demeter with life giving qualities, one can only expect the opposite in return. Her depiction of power and of the growth she gives to the harvests is simply man’s representation of his own views on women and their ability to give life and the awareness of taking that life away. The comparison of the seasons, with Demeter, is also man’s view on life. What man destroys, nature will help refurbish.
“To Build a Fire” is a short story written by Jack London. It is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner who is traveling to the Yukon Territory with a dog as his companion. The miner is the protagonist and the dog companion is called the foil. The dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. “The central motif of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature.” (Short Story Criticism) The most argued point in the short story is the reason of the protagonist death. “Some critics believe that it was his lack of intuition and imagination that lead to his death, while others say that he dies because of panic.” (Short Story Criticism) The protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggles in
In this essay we will be studying the Homeric Hymns, including the Hymn to Apollo, to Hermes, and to Aphrodite, with particular emphasis on the Hymn to Demeter. Although he Homeric Hymns are of unknown authorship and differ widely in date, the Hymns that we will be focused on, are generally thought to have been composed between the 7th and 5th centuries BC (citation). The Hymn to Demeter is unlike the other Homeric Hymns in that Demeter refuses to submit to Zeus, and channels her own authority through her gift of fertility; Demeter displays power as a Goddess through her motherhood, not in spite of it, and affronts the