Greek and Roman Mythology - Essay Example

Question Beneath all the propaganda for the ascendant Roman Empire and the story of Rome’s celebrating its establishment, Aneid is a poem that talks about inner realm of emptiness filled with tormented remorse and memories. The poem is presented in a state of lament. It is a sorrowful tale of the Aeneas trying to re echo his past woes. Aeneas himself cringes back in fear as he recounts his past misery. Aeneas is sentimental about his past experience and is expressing his personal regret about the events of his destiny. This is portrayed in the whole narrative of his sea wanderings and of the Fall of Troy both Books II and III. This narrative is an empty space of lament and memory, where loss of glory and love in Troy is mourned. The significance of historic allegoric events and their emotional redecoration brings the meaning they have in the present of epic narrative. Aeneas flashback in his own voice full of lament over all that has ensued upon Troy’s end can be seen in Books II and III. His voice is not the same as that of the public voice of the epic devoted to recounting the earliest heroic facts building up to Rome’s glorious founding. It tells a story of suffering, difficulty and personal loss and not a celebration of Roman glory. The entire narrative of the origin of Rome, beginning from Book II, describes Aeneas’s personal tale of hardship and their experience is explained in emotional positions. According to Aeneas’s account, Troy was conquered by skillful deceit of Greeks like Sinon and Ulysses and not by bravery means. Aeneas’s story of Troy’s fall shows that the Greeks triumph was not heroic but by fraud as indicated by Sinon’s fake tears and tall tale. The motive of narrative teasingly downgrades celebration of Rome’s greatness. The narrative is betrayed by a voice of regret is heard through Aeneas’s experience of grief and nostalgia. In Virgil’s poem the Aeneid, Aenas is a Roman hero and an ideal Roman citizen. A Roman citizen should have two important virtues; he must be pious, and loyal to the Roman race. In the poem, Aeneas hold both of these virtues has to deal with both the costs and rewards of them. In Roman, a pious man must follow his destiny and must fulfill what he is called to do. Aeneas is pious and he must follow the will of the gods, even when they make him suffer. His destiny is to lead the people of Trojan to conquer Rome. This proves to be difficult task for him to overcome and he faces many challenges along the way, but he keeps on struggling towards his final goal. His loyalty to the Roman race is as seen throughout the entire poem. Although there are times that he is tempted to go against the Romans, he decides to remain loyal and continue fighting until they conquer the empire. Aeneas represents an ideal roman citizen and the ultimate Roman hero, but these attributes do not last until the end of the poem. The character of Dido in the Aeneid exceeds all of her predecessors in humanity and humanity. She is a widow and her past continues to affect her in the present. Her husband Sychaeus has been murdered, has had to flee from her home ( Tyre) to North Africa, where she now in charge of building Carthage, the new city. Her kingdom is surrounded by enemies from all sides, but she is determined to go against all odds to protect the new city. She also faces a different kind of threat in form of marriage offers but she has refused all and has made a firm decision to remain loyal to her husband’s memories. However, the god of love, Amor destroys her memory of her deceased husband so that she can fall in love with Aeneas. By the time Amor has finished doing his work, Dido becomes very passionate lady as Virgil describes her feelings for Aeneas of desire as like a fire burning in her marrow. The gods make Dido believe that she is legitimately married to Aneas,the Trojan warrior and is now committed to him completely. But when she finds out that Aeneas is leaving the memory of her old husband Sychaeus comes back, making her regretful. It is in this situation that she utters her bitter curses at the Trojans and decides to commits suicide. The gods are not hostile towards the Trojan immigrants. In fact the local river god (Tiberinus) appears in a dream to encourage Aeneas and foretells about Aeneas destiny and the Trojans. It is by his prophetic guidance that the god helps the Trojans most in their sea wanderings. Question #2 Medea is a passionate character who is driven by her irrational forces to do actions that end up hurting the people she loves. Just like the male heroes, Medea can do anything in her power in achieve what she wants, as it seen when she kills her children in order to revenge against Jason. She plays the heroine role; she rescues Jason from many threats. Jason depends on her for survival and success. She gives up everything in order to be with Jason. She is also dishonest and extremely devious character particularly when she tells the Chorus that she intentionally lied to Jason so as to make him to trust her. Euripides at first tries to capture the audience support for Medea when Jason is taking advantage of her. Through the chorus expression, the audience feels pity for Medea. This is one of the tradition Greek drama in which the chorus is used in order to establish the mood for the audience as well as communicate the author’s themes and feelings. As the play begins, the chorus says that they have heard the cry of Medea and they are sorry for her sorrows. This is an instance where the author tries to get the audience to be pitiful towards Medea. Also the use of very intense words in the chorus such as “wretched” is another way to make the audience pity Medea and turn them against Jason. The attitude of the chorus towards Medea and her plans differ throughout the play of. In the beginning, the chorus pity Medea as they have heard her cries. They express sympathy for Medea in their conversation with the nurse and they say that their purpose in coming is to console Medea. In the next stasimon, the chorus begins with criticism of Medea’s excessive love for Jason and they pray that they never have to leave their homeland, but end it with sympathy for Medea's troubles and a condemnation of Jason. The chorus support of Medea changes when she announces her plan to kill her children: they express horror and urge her to reconsider. In the third stasimon, the chorus dwells on the impiety and cruelty of such a deed. However, they remain virtually silent during a subsequent scene in which Jason professes love for the boys. The behavior of the chorus in Medea is surprising to the audience because he had the opportunity to prevent the children's murder by alerting Jason, but they decided to stay quiet. Euripides had provided a rationale for this in the beginning of the play, Medea requests the chorus not to inform Jason of her plot against him. The chorus of Medea is a vivid and integral component of the play. It has a role to play just like other characters in the play. It fluctuates between kindness and cruelty, mixing well with evil. The chorus shows that Medea’s world is wrong and profane. As the plot in Medea advances, she decides to kill her children and Jason’s wife in order to take revenge upon him. The audience and chorus attitude now shifts in favor of Jason. After Medea commits the murder of Jason’s wife and children the audience has less sympathy for her. Medea is a play that expresses feminist concerns and issues. Medea herself is portrayed as a contrast to many Athenian beliefs. She is not only a woman, but is also a foreigner in Greek, as Jason reminds her that she is an outsider. She is very intelligent but also ruled by her passions. Euripides allows Medea demonstrate her case. This is a reminder of how Greek tragedy often shows concern to those who are excluded by political power. Women and foreigners were treated like slaves. Although Athens was considered to be a city of equality and justice, women were oppressed just like Jason did to Medea. . In the beginning Jason is seen as very powerful and is able to take full control over Medea. However, Jason is does not portray a masculine character, he uses Medea to succeed, he is therefore a coward. He dies unheroically when he is hit on the head by a beam while sleeping on his ship. King Creon is also a coward; he commits suicide after he saw his daughter burn to death. Even after Medea plans went through successfully, and her children were killed, she cries that she is lost. This shows how her revenge against Jason drove her to insanity and caused her to murder her children. Although she managed to ruin Jason’s life she ended up sacrificing her own children and also caused more destruction to other people such as King Creon who killed himself after he saw her daughter set ablaze in flames. At the end of the play Medea is left with nothing to live for and decides to escape to a new city to begin a new life. Luckily, she finds refuge with Aegeus of Athens Work cited Lawall, Sarah and Maynard, Mack. The Norton anthology of world masterpieces, the Western tradition Literature of western culture through the Renaissance. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. Print. Read More

 

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