Blog #17

10/15/19

Modern Mythology

Period 1

Benjamin Zhu

Blog #17

Aim: How does the Greek mythological story of creation highlight the troubles between the family structure, the sexes, the struggles for dominance and control, and the child paying for the sins of the parents?

Do now: How does the Judeo-Christian Story of the garden of eden compared with Greek creation? How about Eve and Pandora? Why are women always the “root of all evil?”

Both are around the fact that, the world was good and just as God had planned before Pandora or women were introduced. Women are the root of all evil mainly because these stories were created by men and they were created by their own agenda. Also both eve and pandora were shown to be easily tempted. Eve took the apple and pandora opened the box. Both showed that because they were tempted and wanted something, they both caused trouble for everyone else. Pandora was meant to be used by Zeus to get back at man. Another correlation between the two characters is that they are both the first woman to appear. 

The most popular theory of our universe's origin centers on a cosmic cataclysm unmatched in all of history is the big bang. This theory was born of the observation that other galaxies are moving away from our own at great speed, in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient explosive force.

Before the big bang, scientists believe, the entire vastness of the observable universe, including all of its matter and radiation, was compressed into a hot, dense mass just a few millimeters across. This nearly incomprehensible state is theorized to have existed for just a fraction of the first second of time.

The Big Bang would often be compared to the creation of Greek stories because like chaos, the Big Bang started everything, from planets to humans similarly to chaos who created titans and gods. 

GROUP WORK

Heaven (as a father) – Mother Earth Cronus (as a father) – Mother Rhea

1. What overwhelming similarities do Heaven and Cronus share? 

2. Why is it significant that Cronus repeated the same atrocities to his children that Heaven did to his children?

3. Aside from the prophecy, why was Zeus’ usurping of Cronus inevitable?

4. What can be understood about the relationship between mother and child compared with mother and father? Why is this important for understanding culture?

1. Heaven doesn’t like his kids because they were too ugly while cornus killed his kids because he was afraid of being overthrown. Also, they were both supreme rulers before their kids were born.
2. It is significant to show that they repeated the same atrocities because it shows how these titans or beings treat their kids which could cause them to do similar actions to their kids. It shows these beings as humanize, not learning from their mistakes. 
3. Because they prophecy proclaimed that One of Cronus’s kids will overthrow him so the only one that survived was Zeus. His actions were inevitable for cornus’s downfall. Zeus was also probably furious about his eaten siblings so he would often try to save them. Also, since the titans were causing chaos, it will be sooner than later that someone would come upon and clear the stage for humans to appear. 
4. The mother and child is shown to care much more than the father. The mother loves the kids and do everything in their power to protect them, which is the complete opposite of the fathers. This shows motherly love which is adopted in many cultures. Mothers usually tend to care more. This saying doesn’t really work in today’s society because now both parents show just as much care rather than just the mother. 

WHOLE GROUP DISCUSSION 

Does the fondness of Prometheus to mankind warrant Zeus' anger? How could the Greeks explain why Zeus sometimes wanted to help man, and sometimes was irritated by man?

Zeus was being petty that Prometheus helped man. This shows human nature in itself in the sense that humans would often shows hatred towards one another and this also shows the theme of son killing father. Zeus was somewhat scared and concerned that he might be overthrown in the same way that Zeus overthrow Cronus. Since Prometheus gave the humans fire, we can survive longer and this broke us out of zeus's grasp. Since we can live longer, Zeus can’t really control our path of survival. 

Reflection: 

Today I learn about the relationships between father and son which is apparent with zeus and cronus as well as cronus and heaven. Furthermore, i also learn about how mothers in greek mythology tend to care more about their kids than fathers, yet women are viewed more as a catastrophic figure which can be seen with pandora and eden.