4/30/13 Final

Humanity has changed in great ways during the past three thousand years. Their society has grown so much. I have witnessed their society grow so much during the years I have observed them. After watching humanity, I believe I have figured out the greatest question that all humans have pondered. I believe I have figured out what it means to be human.

Human

Humans are simple beasts who like other beasts crave to be accepted by their own kind. They do not live full lives unless they have interaction with other humans. In fact one of their own kind states that friendship is a necessity for humans. This human was Aristotle. However, there are different types of friendships for humans. In Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle mentions what he believes to be the three types of human friendships. He classifies them as “Friendship based on utility,” “Friendship based on pleasure,” and “Perfect friendship is based on goodness” (Coursepack,75). I greatly believe that Aristotle was on to something when he stated this. From my findings on humans, I have witnessed many of these types of friendships. The utilities gained from some of the friendships can be small or big things. Some examples include having the friend give you a ride, having the friend help them on work, and even just having the friend visit so they can have someone to talk to. Many of these friendships only last until the need has been filled. I noticed that small children and older humans usually use this type of friendship. The pleasure aspect is mostly used by young humans who are not yet adult humans. Many of them have friends who are only friends with them as long as they bring them some type of pleasure. The pleasure can be any type of pleasure. The goodness factor according to Aristotle is the perfect friendship. I must say that I agree with him. The perfect friendships are between humans who have nothing to gain from being friends, and yet still remain friends. They focus on just being with each other. I completely agree that humans require friendships in order to fully experience the human life.

Achilles

Humans have had literature like Aristotle’s literature that will use Aristotle’s work to help describe humanity. Their society has changed, but in my own opinion their society still focuses on what other humans think of them. Homer’s Illiad shows what their society was all about in the Ancient time. It was a society based on shame. Now it is true that their society has changed more into a society of guilt, but they still focus greatly on what other humans think of them. From Homer’s Illiad, Achilles has a choice. He can live but not be remembered or die and people will remember his name forever. Do you know what he chose? Due to their society being a society of shame, he chose to die just so he would always be remembered. To our society this may seem backwards, but to their society at the time he chose the correct answer. Humans base their own image on what other humans think of them. The humans have grown out of this, but they still worry about what other people think of them. I doubt any human alive today would choose the same answer that Achilles chose, but they still want other humans to think well of them.

Chain of Being

Humans have gone through many different periods in their societies. One of the greatest periods in my opinion is the period that humans call the Enlightenment period. In fact without the complex human thought of this period perhaps one of the greatest nations of humanity wouldn’t exist today. During the Enlightenment, humans’ way of thinking changed. One human even wrote an essay on humans that he titled, Essay on Man (Pope, Coursepack, 17-23). This human’s name was Alexander Pope. In Essay on Man, he describes a chain of being, which when I read it I believed he would make man the top of the chain. However, I was wrong as I continued to read his work; I noticed that he didn’t put humans at the top of the chain. He put them in the middle of the chain. Pope continues on talking about how man has his place and he can neither go above or below his place. “Aspiring to be gods, angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel” (Essay on Man, Coursepack, 18). This quote from Pope’s work shows that he truly believes that everything has its place on the chain and that no one can change it. I must say, I agree with what Pope calls, “The Chain of Being.” This thought like many others came from the Enlightenment period of humanity.

I have talked about humanity’s past, but now I will tell of humans from the present, or the Modern era of humanity. One thing I noticed greatly with humans is never judge a book by its cover and never judge a book by what is written on the page. Many humans from the past wrote many wonderful things, however only now are humans really discovering what they believe the writings to be truly about. One of the greatest poems in modern times for humans to learn how to read poetry is Billy Collin’s Introduction to Poetry (Coursepack, 6). In his poem, he tells humans by using images and symbolic meanings how they should read a poem. In my opinion this can work for any kind of literature. He tells humans not to just think of the words on the page, but to really try to see what is behind the words. The things behind the words can be images, symbols, or the human author’s true intentions. Many past human authors may have had other intentions for their writings rather than what many believe.

Did I mention earlier about how humans will use what other humans used over and over. One great example of this is the song by Kelly Clarkson, a music artist of modern day humanity. Her song, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger (Coursepack 13), was a new way to think about what another human had already stated. Friedrich Nietzsche originally had this idea. His quote is “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” (psychologytoday.com). This is a perfect example of how humans will use what others have used.

Humanity is a great civilization. They may have their shortcomings, but they will thrive. They must have social interactions with other humans. It amazes me of how much they have opened their minds over these three thousand years. They are beginning to understand what their past has to teach them. All in all, in order to be human one must be with humans and learn from humans, and before long that person will be a human.

4/18/13

Tragedy

     Aristotle believes that tragedy is an action that is serious, complete, and has magnitude. Tragedy to Aristotle is not a narrative which some may view it as now days. Aristotle believes a tragedy must have six parts to make it a tragedy. These parts are plot, characters, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody. Aristotle believed that tragedy is more philosophical than history. History only relates what happened. Tragedy shows what may happen. Tragedy is universal and causes a cause and effect chain that shows what could happen.

Greek Theater

     According to Aristotle, hamartia does not mean a tragic flaw. It means more of a tragic mistake or situation rather than flaw. This is like Orestes, he doesn't have a flaw, but he is in a tragic situation. Almost all protagonists in a tragedy go through hamartia. They are not flawed, but just put in bad situations or make mistakes.
    According to Aristotle, katharsis means purging. He uses it more as a medical metaphor. It has emotions raise of pity and fear to purge the excess of those emotions. He also talks about how people can get pleasure  from a tragedy. The pleasure is gained by the people responding to their fear and pity.

Greek Theater

    Deus ex machina was used as a plot device for most tragedies in those days. It was an "episodic" plot in which the plot was in the form of episodes that came right after the other without a necessary sequence. Aristotle believed this was the worst type of plot for tragedies. He didn't like it at all.

4/16/13

Priam

Achilles

     Xanthus is Achilles horse. Hera gives the horse the ability to speak to Achilles. He tells Achilles that he will die. Achilles then says that he knows already because he can feel as if death is around him. After this, Achilles mentor and friend Patroclus appears to Achilles to tell him he needs to bury, or burn, him quickly otherwise he cannot enter Hades. In this culture, a person cannot pass into the underworld unless they are buried or burned otherwise they stay in a state of limbo.

Achilles and Priam

Death of Hector

     The golden scales represents the lives of men. Fate then decides who lives and dies. In this case the scales show that Hector is going to die by the hand of Achilles. Even the gods have no control when it comes to fate. Fate is more powerful tan the gods because Zeus wants to interfere, but fate has already claimed the life of Hector. Athena reminds Zeus of Hector's fate which makes him not interfere.

4/11/13

     I must say the Iliad isn't as hard to understand as I thought it would be. As stated in the course pack, the Iliad takes place in medias res, which means in the middle of things. Medias res is the time period in which the story of the Iliad takes place. According to Homer, the Iliad is about, "the story of raging anger and its human toll." It is about Achilles rage. It is not about the Trojan War, but the war is what holds Homer's work together.

Chris Evans: Achilles

     Achilles is a Greek king who is one of the Greeks greatest warriors. He is angered by what he believes is a lack of respect from Agamemnon. He feels that they are only fighting because Agamemnon commands them to. He also feels cheated by people like Agamemnon who take a great share of the spoils for which Achilles and others have fought to obtain. Achilles believes Agamemnon to be selfish and stupid. He believes Agamemnon has not treated him with the proper respect that he feels he deserves.
     Briseis is a woman who Agamemnon gave to Achilles as a prize. I am unsure if they were married, but I believe they were. Anyway after Achilles decided not to fight in the war, Agamemnon takes her away from him. This troubles both of them since they seemed to really love each other.
     Kleos means glory or fame. It is what others say about you. This was a major issue then and it still is used greatly in our society today because we want everyone to say good things about us. We base our popularity on what others think of us.
     Time represents honor. Their honor is based on physical things like gifts, prizes, etc. When a man was honored back then, the king or people would give them honor by offering them gifts. I believe we still use this today. We honor people in the military by offering them deals for food. Some places give a discount to honor those who served. The discount can be viewed as a gift.

Achilles and Patroclus

     Kleos aphthiton represents glory that goes beyond the grave. In there time, this was the greatest thing to have people honor you after you had died. Many soldiers were honored in death due to them dying for their kings. In our world, this a greatly shown through the founding fathers. They may be dead but we still honor them. Martin Luthor King Jr. is honored in death by us celebrating his birthday every year. It is us thinking about all the good they have done in life so we honor them by remembering them in their deaths.
     I believe the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus from reading was a teacher-student relationship that grew into a kind of friendship. "He sent me to you to you this" is the line that convinced me that Patroclus was his mentor(Iliad Book 9, page 172, line 454). Achilles refuses to fight and Patroclus takes his armor to wear into battle. This in my opinion diminishes the divine nature of Achilles' armor since Patroclus in a normal man. This shows that Achilles divine nature has fallen as well since his armor was taken and stripped from the dead body of Patroclus. It showed that he wasn't as powerful as he thought he was.

4/4/13

     In order for the Greek army to sail to Troy, they had to do something which in today's society would be completely wrong. They had to sacrifice someone in order to sail to Troy. They had to sacrifice Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon had done one of the following which upset Diana. He killed one of her stags or made a careless boast. Either way, this upset Diana, who made the sea unable to travel on. I believe this is awful. I wouldn't feel very safe if it took human sacrifice to please a god. Even human sacrifice is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis, not sure exactly where. Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his one and only son, but God only told him this as a test to test Abraham's faith in him. Abraham never sacrificed his son because God stopped him. I am a christian, but if God required human sacrifice I probably wouldn't be. Anyway, I would hate to serve a god who required this.

Emma Stone

     I believe a good female actress for the part of Helen would be Emma Stone. Emma is a beautiful girl, but also smart and witty. Helen was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world at this time, so I believe Emma fits that role. I also think that Helen was probably smart and witty. I mean she left her husband and took some of his wealth with her. She had to be smart to pull that off in this time.

Palladium

    The Palladium was a statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom. I'm not really sure why they had to steal it, but my guess would be that it would disgrace Athena if her statue was in Troy when it fell. It could have symbolized her protection over the city.

Trojan Horse

    The Trojan Horse is probably one of the greatest tricks in all of history. It took the Trojans completely by surprise. The idea for the Trojan Horse came from Odysseus. Some may say that Athena helped him with the idea, but I don't really believe in the Greek gods so I think it was all him.

4/2/13

     I must say compared to the first reading, this was not as hard to digest. Aristotle is talking about friendship and how he views it. He states that there are three types of friendships. Friendship based on utility, pleasure, and goodness.
     The first type is friendship with a basis in utility. This means that the friendship is only there while your getting something you need. The friend is useful to you. An example of this was when I was a freshman in high school. There was a student who could drive. I wasn't able to yet, but I tried to become friends with the student just so they would let me ride to school with them. Soon after I was able to drive our friendship disappeared. This shows the problem with this type of friendship. It doesn't last long after their usefulness has run out.

Delta Farce

     The second is based on pleasure. This means that the friendship is based off of getting pleasure for yourself. You are only friends as long as they give you some sort of pleasure. An example of this is ex-girlfriends. They are a friend while they bring pleasure to you, but whenever the pleasure stops on most occasions the friendship does too.
     The third is based on goodness. Aristotle believes this to be the only true friendship. You are not in it for the pleasure, nor for their usefulness. They are a friend just because. I really don't know how to state it. They don't care about making themselves happy, but they wanna try to make you happy. When both people think this way, the friendship builds and can last forever.
     The movie Delta Farce in my opinion shows some of all three types of friendship. The first is shown when the town allows them to stay. They only do this because the men have become useful to the town in helping prevent Carlos Santana's gang from wrecking it. The second is when the town is throwing the men a party because the men really don't care about the town, but they are enjoying the pleasure that the town in giving them. The third is shown after the men save their Sargent. They return to the town and choose to stay and fight even though their is no pleasure or usefulness to gain from it. They choose to stay for the good of the people in the town.

Larry the Cable Guy, DJ Qualls, & Bill Engvall

     I believe Randy Travis is speaking about the third type. He is talking about being with the same woman forever. I haven't really heard about only being with her until her usefulness wares out or the pleasure is gone in the song. I strongly believe that he is talking about the fact that he will continue to be friends or in love with her forever, and it doesn't matter what happens. He will always love her, which shows the third type of friendship in my opinion.