Lately, there have been a variety of classic fairy tales that have been renovated to appeal to an audience of the twenty-first century on the big screen. However, such revisions occur not only in movies, but in literature as well. Through the use of literary devices, we have the ability to connect classic tales to the modern world. In Edward Field's poem "Icarus", the author employs imagery and extended metaphor to adapt the Icarus myth to a contemporary setting.
Do you believe that the two sexes today are treated differently from one another? In the Odyssey, written by Homer, there is a constant comparison between the opposite sexes. Throughout this book, Odysseus struggles to get home to his submissive wife Penelope. He encounters challenges, one of which is beautiful tempting women who urge him to stay. Meanwhile, Penelope is in Ithaka busy dealing with the suitors who vie for her hand in marriage, tending to her loom, and directing her serving maids at work. In Homer’s epic poem, women, and goddesses are treated differently than men and gods when it comes to their freedom, expectations, and image.
Sirens are half bird and half woman that seduce men into ending their lives by luring men up close to the rocks because they seem to distaste men. Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey and Margaret Atwood’s poem “Siren Song” both discuss how men and the sirens are portrayed throughout a portion of Odysseus’ journey back to Ithaca. In The Odyssey, the sirens are portrayed as sneaky villains by seducing men and the men are portrayed as brave and strong. In “Siren Song”, the Sirens are portrayed as sneaky but also innocent, and helpless while men are portrayed as easily tricked. To portray the two authors’ different and similar opinions on the Sirens, the different characters in the epic poem and poem use diction, point of view, and imagery.
Greek Mythology is notoriously anti-female revolution. From Aeschylus’s depiction of Clytemnestra’s thirst for power to one’s own Euripides’ depiction of Medea’s rampage of revenge, Greek mythology is terrified of powerful women. The Bacchae by Euripides makes no exception and continues stifling female empowerment; however, Euripides adds his own unique spin on terrifying female depiction. Instead of just representing women in power as monsters to fear, he instead blames femininity as the culprit. He uses the Bacchae, Dionysus, and Pentheus as examples of the danger in accessing one’s own femininity. The Bacchae’s own control of their sexuality, as Pentheus describes “They creep off one by one to lonely spots to have sex with men”, and their feminine features, as their breasts swell and their hair cascades, creates an example of women gone wild with power over themselves
A mythological story can express a valuable message to its readers, advising them to choose a certain path when making decisions and to stray away from what can harm them. It can also give an artist, whether it is a painter or a poet, the inspiration to express their intake of what was given to them. The expression can show support of a character’s decision, show sadness towards a character’s place in the myth, or relate the myth to a real-life occurrence. When poet Eavan Boland was reading Book 1 of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, she wanted to express a different meaning of the story of Daphne by writing “Daphne with her Thighs in Bark”. She did this by using a feminist approach while looking back at Daphne’s fate.
The following essay treats the problem of ambiguity in John Keats poems To Autumn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
Also it is depicted how the father is cruel and at the same time gentle.Booby Fang , a literary analyst, showed how this poem can have mixed feelings of interpretation. He mentions how the poem is like a seesaw where the elements of joy, which Fang notes as the figure of the waltz and the rhythm it has, balances with elements of fear which he mentions happens through the effects of diction used in the novel such as the words like romped, scraped, beat, and whiskey. The narrator in the poem is remembering an incident in his childhood which shows that thet there were qualities in his father that were good and bad. He mentions that the achievement of this poem is that it permits readers to access such powerful memories in their own lives in ways consistent with the words and construction of the
“Every man needs his siren to check his courage and strength” – Dejan Stojanovic --. Stojanovic views the sirens as women, taking care of their spouses, and giving their spouses what they need in order to be strong. However others may view them differently. Sirens are portrayed differently through the eyes of different people. Odysseus, from “The Odyssey” and Margaret Atwood, author of “Siren Song” portray the sirens differently in their excerpts. In Homers’ classical epic, Odysseus’ classical tone and chauvinistic point of view exhibits that the sirens can be conquered, whereas, Atwood’s modern tone and feminist point of view suggest the sirens to be more insidious.
In Homer’s The Odyssey, particular characters have some sort of disguise that allows them to deceive others. In the epic, there is also a demonstration of inequality between men and women. The idea of guile in The Odyssey was raised multiple times throughout the epic and it was often considered to be wisdom. From the beginning of the epic, we see characters praising men for their “wisdom” and women are oppressed for the majority of their actions, including lying. This patriarchal system that oppresses women for their actions, including shunning them for being deceptive, reveals the double standard in society, but also reveals the social statuses in this time period that oppressed women and bound them from being able to change the overall epic.
In the “Odyssey”, Homer introduces the expedition Odysseus goes through to return to his native land. At one point he and his comrades must take the path that leads them to the island of the Sirens. The notorious sirens sing their sickeningly sweet tune to entice men to their eradication. Poet Atwood depicts the sirens in a calamitous facet. Both Homer and Atwood convey the idea that the Sirens pose a detrimental role through the application of imagery and diction.
Everyone knows the Greek myth of Odysseus and his long journey to return home. On this journey, recorded in Homer’s “The Odyssey”, Odysseus encountered the mythical and deadly Sirens. In Homer’s text, Odysseus braves the enchanting songs of the horrible temptresses. In Margaret Atwood’s rendition titled “Siren Song”, though, the Sirens are more humanized, and the satirical writing turns the Sirens into bored singers who hate their jobs. The difference in the portrayal of the Sirens in these two pieces of writing are huge, one being the original text, mythical and suspenseful, the other being a satirized adaptation, depicting the Sirens as normal people in “Bird costumes”, bored and lonely.
Literature has been a constant expression of artistic emotion throughout history. Over the course of the years, Literature has developed and changed due to America’s evolution. These changing time periods can be classified into 9 eras: Colonial, Revolutionary, Romantic, Transcendental, Realism, Modern, Harlem Renaissance, Beat Generation, and Postmodern. Throughout the changing history, new literary eras have begun in response to previous eras and events. American Literature has changed over time by adapting previous values, beliefs, and literary characteristics when a new era presents itself; this progression is due to changing societal views in
Everyone has a different perception on what perceptions means. According to Merriam Webster, perception is “the way you think about or understand someone or something.” Many stories and poems focus on the theme of perception. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson are both favorable examples. In this essay, the topics of perception and how it is used in the story and poem are explored based on textual evidence.
While the ‘heroic nude’ is often reserved for the male figure in the neoclassical movement, Andrei Pop’s pluralist reading of Fuseli’s Macbeth readings suggest that the heroic nude can also be applied to the female body as well. Pop argues that by comparing the two drawings of Lady Macbeth Sleep-Walking (fig. 5 & 6), the bare “heroic mid-section” places her in the realm of a Greek hero and that “it is in her madness, suicide, and the pathological sleepwalking … that Lady Macbeth becomes a moral subject.” Perhaps we can read Titania as a similar insinuation of morality in the fact that she was spellbound through a cruel prank by her husband and his minion.
In the literary works that we studied this year: The Book Thief, Purple Hibiscus, Macbeth, Sonnet 101,Sonnet 154 , Kevin Pietersen The Autobiography and Dead Poets Society- all the works have the same central theme :”Words have had the power to transform, for better or worse”. The character’s lives have all been affected and transformed by the power of words that has a great effect on their development rather than other external factors that the characters face in their daily lives. This will be shown by analysing how words lead these characters to achieve success and as well as to their demise.