Preview

Monsters In Greek Culture

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
310 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Monsters In Greek Culture
Many monsters were apparent in Greek culture; including the lamia, a child-devouring, demonic woman. Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, god of the sea, was once the queen of Libya. Zeus fell in love with Lamia and the two bore many children. Green with envy, Hera stole and viciously murdered Lamia’s children in revenge; subsequently, Lamia gouged her own eyes out in anguish of her lost children. Zeus then transmogrified her into a half-human, half-serpent monster, the Lamia, and gave her permission to hunt and eat the children of other women to avenge her own. The lamia is known to be the original vampire in Greek mythology; for when she killed the victimized children, she would drain them of their blood by sucking it out of their young bodies. …show more content…
The pukwudgie, meaning “person of the wilderness,” is a contradicting half-troll, half-human that is believed to be an essence of the forest and is associated with flowers regarding their fragrant aroma. This three foot tall, human-like creature, with smooth grey skin that glows in the dark, was once a friend to humans, until sadistically disrespected. When angered, the pukwudgie will bombard their deadly, poisoned arrows at their infuriating foes, lure the antagonists to their death, or summon fire at will. A pukwudgie’s clothing is created from nature and acts as camouflage during their daily mischiefs. Every culture has its own set of monsters. This is because the monstrosities are used as lessons to teach children, as well as adults, how to behave and to mature. Without these creatures there would be no fear as to what would happen if one were to behave as a malicious, foolish, and carefree individual. There would be no order in society; no judgment between right and wrong. Monsters are a vital piece to the understanding of moral

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    There several different Greek monsters. All of these monsters are different. Chimera is a hybrid monster. She is the daughter of Typhoeus and Echidna. This creature names Chimera had the head and body of a lion, she had a goat head on her back and then her tail was a snake. She resided in Lycia. Most of the time when you saw her a disaster would happen right after. King Lobates of Lycia told Beelerophon and Pegasus to kill Chimera.…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the years there have been a multitude of monsters created by people to elicit fear and obedience and also to explain why things occur. Greeks and their predecessors were quite talented at creating stories containing gods and monsters to explain the phenomena of nature around them. Sometimes the lines between the gods and monsters blur in the myths. Although he would be considered a titan or a god due to his birth, Kronos (Cronus) can also be considered a monster as a result of his characteristics and actions.…

    • 89 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In storytelling, monsters are used to express the fears and worries of humans. They allow us to discover our values by questioning our morals through imagination and illusion. In both Donnie Darko and Pan’s Labyrinth illustrating real-life monsters Captain Videl and Jim Cunningham enhances our fear of monsters. These villains symbolize the vulnerability we feel as we identify ourselves with the victims of the attack.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Monster horror is a subgenre of the typical horror genre which incorporates monsters and beasts into horror. These ‘monsters’ can come in many shapes and sizes and come from different places (e.g. Space or underground). An early example of monster horror is ‘Frankenstein’ (also known as ‘The Modern Prometheus’).…

    • 49 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the word monster is defined as an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening. But is that what our modern day society really believes a monster is? Through time what people expect to see in a monster has changed. When you think of how people originally thought of aliens and vampires, you realize it’s a lot different than what we think of them today. Originally vampires were thought of being a corpse that would leave its grave at night and feed off the living by biting their necks. They weren’t able to be exposed to the sunlight or be in the sight of garlic. The idea of vampires have been around for millions of years and they have always represented something very horrifying.…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tradition that survived for centuries dictated how a corpse was prepared for burial. Close female relatives washed and anointed the body and wrapped it in a shroud. The body rested on a funeral bier in the house, surrounded by wreaths of laurel and myrtle to evoke love and immortality. This tableau symbolized the sleep of the dead, who continued to exist in Hades as they had in life. Exacting preparations of the body ensured the best possible life in the underworld. The wake, called the prothesis, featured ritual lamentations. After the wake, a procession, the ekphora, conveyed the deceased to the cemetery outside the city walls for burial. Greek law required the ekphora and the burial to conclude before sunrise so the city would not be disturbed…

    • 174 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Whenever someone thinks of the word monster, the first thing that comes to mind is something big and/or terrifying that hides in closets and under the beds of children. Monstrosity could be described as a way to depict inhumane and devilish qualities. While this could be slightly true, monsters could be anything or anyone that seems truly…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Greek Monsters Essay

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This source summarized details about the Greek Monsters shown in many popular stories like Odysseus and Hercules including history and background information about many of the Greeks monsters past in many famous myths .Scylla,Chimaera,Minotaur,and,Sphinx are some of the monsters included in this source.Scylla unlike other greek monsters Scylla was once a beautiful carefree sea nymph, she was always happy and enjoyed having to do nothing with men. Like many other the other monsters scylla had a spell put on her by circe, a love potion that would leave scylla helpless and would soon mess up her fate forever which soon backfired, and turned her into a horrendous monster.Overall this source mainly summarises the stories of many greek monster and…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Monster In The Odyssey

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In my opinion, monster is a general designation of groups nonhuman organisms. Almost of monsters have different characteristic than human being, such as tail, buck teeth,and sharp claws. Because those inevitable origin, it can be seen monsters are inborned. Most of them called monster because they are the antithesis of human’s life, human’s benefit, or human’s wish. Some of them utilize weakness of humanity to kill people or plunder valuable things. Such as vampire, dragon, Different bad person who enjoyed cruelty, most of monsters kill humans for their lives or kill humans without reason. For some reasons, they might can’t control themselves live without human’s blood or can’t fling away any organism who intruded. In other words, monster are beyond control and kill people crueler and more ferocious than evil people.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A: In British literature, monsters are used as a tool for what the people of the Middle Ages believed they were supposed to do and created these monsters to be portrayed as something “bad” towards humanity. All of the monsters mentioned do share a few common characteristics of what they were supposed to do in British literature. To start, the monsters all inhabit some space outside of the realm of human civilization because they cannot or don’t want to be a part of the human world due to how different they are. Some monsters serve a purpose as being a part of a hero’s journey, such as the Giants and Serpents in the Wilderness of Wirral, which, when Gawain fighting monsters on his journey makes him look more like a knight. Some monsters possess…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In his essay Monster Culture (Seven Theses), Jeffrey Jerome Cohen outlines seven defining characteristics of the literary monster, which govern the nature and implications of monsters created within a particular cultural context. Monsters are each possessed of some of these seven theses. King Kong, one of the best known figures in cinema history, fits well into at least two of the seven theses.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Greek Gods In The Odyssey

    • 2166 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Monsters also have educate humanity or even children to inculcate values of life and also be…

    • 2166 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    11-12: The second beast comes out of the earth and has two horns, where the first beast had ten, indicating that he is less fearsome that the first. These two horns are taken from Daniel 8:3, which depicts a ram with two horns that speaks as a dragon, “suggesting that its role is primarily religious” in nature. This second “knockoff of Christ” speaks with the voice of God (John 5:25-30), and uses the same words as the ancient serpent that lead the world astray. This second beast has “all the power of his predecessor” and helps the first beast, coercing the inhabitants of the earth worship the first beast. While the first beast spoke defiantly against God and his people, the second beast “makes the first beast’s claims sound plausible and…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Monster Theory. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.…

    • 1628 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    On Monsters

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Many people perceive monsters as anything grotesque or not looking like the norm. In the book On Monsters, written by Asma, he mentions an array of monsters. He states, “One aspect of the monster concept seems to be the breakdown of intelligibility. An action or a person or a thing is monstrous when it can’t be processed by our rationality, and also when we cannot readily relate to the emotional range involved” (Asma 10). Because our perception is blinded by appearance, we fail to see the truth behind a monster –their actions. Although people define a monster by their appearance, it’s their actions that give them their identity.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays