Preview

Black Orpheus

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1038 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Black Orpheus
Ashley Milton English 1020 Love and Death in Black Orpheus
May 10, 2004 paper no. 4

In fiction or reality being overly ambitious can cause one to yield to the evils of temptations. In Black Orpheus the myth fits into the story because it demonstrates the extremes an individual will endure to regain lost love, and relive the past. In the movie Orpheus and Eurydice both experience a case of "love at first at first sight". They barely know each other but feel that because of Greek Mythology they were destined to love each other. When Orpheus asked Eurydice her name, and she responded he said that he knew he loved her. Another factor of love is displayed when Orpheus leaves Mira his fiancé for Eurydice, someone who he barely knew. In the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus and Eurydice become married; however these two gain unconditional love for each other like in the movie. Orpheus loves Eurydice with all his heart, and would do anything to savage their relationship. Orpheus feels as if nothing could harm them, not even death. In Black Orpheus the two of them also conquer jealousy from the town's people. Many people didn't encourage the love these two had built and basically wanted the love affair between them two to end. In the movie Orpheus tried to protect Eurydice from anything he felt would harm her, including his fiancé Mira, who evidentially hated her. Mira tried on numerous occasions to harm Eurydice, but Orpheus would always be their as a form of protection. Orpheus also tries to protect Eurydice from the skeleton man who symbolized "death". Orpheus goes beyond the call of duty to comfort Eurydice because she was very frightened by his appearance. Orpheus followed Eurydice around when she became startled. When the skeleton man finally succeeds at harming Eurydice Orpheus tries to save her by running to her rescue. However the only thing that was saved was his feelings for Eurydice and his memory. Death is represented when Orpheus

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Book nineteen of the Odyssey tells how Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, questions her curious visitor whom claims to have met her husband. He describes Odysseus in such perfect detail that Penelope begins to cry. Penelope offers Odysseus, who is still disguised as a beggar, a place to stay and a bed to sleep in. He turns down the bed and sleeps on the floor like he is used to. Eurycleia, a servant of Penelope, washes Odysseus’ feet where she discovers a scar on his one foot. She recognizes the scar and throws her arms around Odysseus. Odysseus had received the scar from when he had gone boar hunting with Autolycus, his grandfather. Eurycleia keeps what she has found out away from Penelope. Before going to bed, Penelope shares a dream she had had…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Once the suitors had been defeated and Odysseus emerged triumphant, Eurycleia scurried to Penelope’s side to declare the return of Odysseus and the fall of the suitors. A doubting Penelope had a hunch that the gods were trying to deceive her. She settled to test this victorious man who claimed to be her husband.…

    • 1317 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The poem supports my claims that Orpheus’s journey to save Eurydice is selfish and that transcendence of the ego is the paramount to heroism. In “Eurydice,” even as Orpheus mourns the loss of his bride, Eurydice mourns the loss of her own life and known world. Truly, her grief is profound. When she is summoned to follow Orpheus, suddenly she is filled with hope, even desperation, that she might be alive once more. Then, he fails to lead her out of her hell. He glances back, out of his own arrogance and selfishness, and dooms her to Hades a second time. The poem seethes with Eurydice’s bitterness. She laments his determination to save her, shown in Stanza I; “if you had let me wait / I had grown from listlessness / into peace, / if you had let me rest with the dead, / I had forgot you / and the past” (Doolittle 4). She would rather he had left her alone to come to terms with her death; then, she might have more easily rested in peace. Instead, Eurydice has life ripped away from her…

    • 1936 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, Laertes and Penelope are two of many characters who have known to grieve for Odysseus, which is mentioned frequently throughout the epic. In the underworld, Odysseus’s deceased mother, Anticleia who perished from her “longing”(11.201) for him, informs him…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, tests him to assure herself of his identity. As he listens, she asks Eurycleia to move the bedside out of the couple’s chamber and spread it with blankets. The king himself had carved the bed as a young man, shaping it out of a living olive tree that grew in the courtyard of the palace. He built the bedroom around the tree and would know that the bed cannot be moved. When Odysseus becomes upset that the original bed may have been destroyed, Penelope is relieved and accepts him as her long absent husband. For the first time in twenty years they spent a blissful night together. In relation to a soldier some have trouble stepping back into relationships with family and friends after an experience that sent home a different person.…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This caused the men not to be overpowered by the Sirens. Odysseus gave up his own safety to save his men's lives, showing a courageous act. Another example is, when odysseus and his men were trapped by the Cyclops, he devised a plan to free himself and the men. Odysseus put the plan into action because he, “... leaned on it [the spear] turning it as a shipwright turns a drill in planking,” blinding the Cyclops(316-318). Odysseus came up with this because he did not want to kill him, or his men would never escape. Therefore, his plan was to blind the cyclops by stabbing him in the eye. This effected the rest of the journey because again, he saved his men from death. Finally, he is courageous when he goes to kill the suitors for his wife. After he reveals himself to the suitors, Odysseus starts shooting arrows to kill them. Then he says to Telemachus, “when they are all gone if I’m alone, they can…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Penelope doesn't believe it is him after so many years so Odysseus has to give her some sign that it is him and he did. Woman, by heaven you've stung me now!…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the study of Greek plays, one tries to recreate for an experience, to recapture something of what is meant to those for whom it was written. We know more about the life of Sophocles than we know do about the lives of any other Greek playwright, but this still is not a lot. Sophocles’ work has been said to be the pinnacle of Greek tragedy. Oedipus the King is something like the literary Mona Lisa of ancient Greece. It presents a nightmare vision of a world turned upside down; a decent man, Oedipus, becomes the king of Thebes, whilst in the process unknowingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. As scholars, we are bound to relate this story through history, to ask what the writer really meant, how…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus’ tragic love is the most unusual, horrific, tragedy I have ever read in my entire life time. Oedipus has a prophecy bestowed upon him from the great Delphic…

    • 569 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love and Midsummer Night

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In A Midsummer Night's Dream the challenges to romantic love are when Hermia goes against her father’s orders to marry Demetrius the man that she doesn’t want to marry.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Odysseus

    • 417 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Lastly, Odysseus shows he is flawed and lucky, once again, when he visits to the Underworld. When all the souls of the dead start to come to Odysseus, he becomes afraid . For example, "From every side they came and sought the pit with rustling cries; and I grew sick with fear." When all the souls start to come to him, he shows his mortal qualities, he shows he is afraid. When Odysseus visits the Underworld he shows…

    • 417 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Achilles In The Odyssey

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Once Odysseus has completed the contest, he then kills the suitors with the help of his son, Telemachus, for disgracing their home and for perusing his wife Penelope. Penelope is Odysseus animus, and even though Odysseus has been gone for over a decade she still only wants Odysseus. Even through Odysseus’s journey, he is tempted by beings sexually, with power, and with a fresh start. At the end Odysseus still chooses Penelope, his true love back in Ithaca. This strong connection between Penelope and Odysseus can be symbolized as their bed that he had carved from an olive tree.…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus And Fences

    • 725 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sophocles' Oedipus Rex revolves around the story of Oedipus, who now is King of Thebes, searching for the murderer of the past king. The tragedy is not so much that Oedipus is the murderer and committing incest with his mother. After all, he was fated to do so, and Oedipus commits these crimes unknowingly. The real tragedy of Oedipus is his trying to defy his destiny and compounding the troubles with his pride. Oedipus has the chance to stop the search for the murderer before the investigation starts. Even blind Teiresias, who tells Oedipus that he is the guilty party, wants Oedipus to stop although Teiresias can see the outcome and knows Oedipus' destiny. It is Oedipus' pride that, in telling the members of his court that he will search for the murderer, leads him down the ever narrowing path to the truth and his pride that will not allow him to stop the search.…

    • 725 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Polaroid Stories is a powerful play with a very interesting take on ancient Greek gods and goddesses who have been converted into inner city kids from the ghetto. I realized this only after the play ended, and that was so awe inspiring to me. The way the characters interact with one another and are affected by their environment are depressingly realistic, as they remind me of bad friends I’ve had and situations I could have easily experienced with them. It was hard to focus on only one actors’ performance, but Orpheus definitely stood out to me during my reflection of the play afterward.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love is desirable, everyone is in search of it, but some take it too far. Some let it control you, and reveal characteristics that ought not to be revealed. Orsino, in the twelfth knight for example let’s love control him revealing aspects of his personality that reveal is obsession with love. Some Notable Characteristics of the Duke of Illyria are his moodiness, selfishness and how he is a fool for love. Orsino is a gentleman who is in search of love, and while eagerly searching; his moodiness and foolishness is revealed.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics