Angela Dong, Period 7, 10/06/23

Modern Mythology 2024

Angela Dong
Period 7
10/06/2023

Literacy and Learning:


    Last night, our homework was to read the first chapter of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. As I skimmed through the first pages during lunch before seventh period, I came to a realization that the Greek myths that Edith talks about had the same content that I had memories of, and yet, it was presented in a different way. From how Edith had presented it, it was as if there was something beyond those gods that affected the Greeks, but I just couldn’t find the significance. From a young age in history class, I was told that the Greek myths was just their religion and what the Greeks worshiped. It was just like another page of the bible, something totally insignificant for someone like me. Edith writes the creation of the Greek myths as a miracle with a touch of wonder, while I just saw it as something totally normal, something like what the ancient people would have created back then (reader-response theory!). As I read further, a little inkling formed at the back of my head: maybe those myths for us weren’t the same for them. Until I read up to the part where it says that the Greeks were the first to have gods based on humans, and how none other religions at the time did, I realized that those myths that we think of as ancient people thought speak were the start of something new, something special.

    As I walked into class digesting the many pages I had just read, Mrs. Fusaro announced a ghost session causing us to just stare at her in confusion. As some of the class was sharing, I realized that all of us walked into this class with different lengths of understanding of Greek mythology. While squirming around hoping I didn’t get called on, everyone shared their thoughts of what they knew, didn’t know, and what they would want to know. I don’t remember quite well what the other students shared, but I knew my question: how did those stories, written by authors, poets, and artists, change and form together into one concrete ‘religion’? All those ideas, straight out of a novel, came together from over different time periods and combined from stories to one singular entity: greek myths.

   While I drift in my thoughts to ponder about this question, Mrs. Fusaro was explaining to us what a myth was and the significance of them. It cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about myths and made the book a lot more clearer to me. Then I realized: for the Greeks, over time the stories became their reality. Stories became a way for the Greeks to express what was going on in their lives. When lightning striked, that was Zeus being angry. When it flooded, Poseidon was raising his trident. It was more than a religion, it was a way of life to explain why things happened. Why humans were doing bad deeds, why there was morning and night, why does the river reflects oneself, why, why why. The writers, in which we got the pleasure to be introduced today, were trying to write stories, but they were also trying to figure out how the world works through storytelling. From a 2d perspective of funny ancient Greek stories to an understanding of how the world worked at the time, I realized the significance of the first human gods. My perception of the world of the past has increased and now I realize that perhaps those ancient men weren’t that different from us, like how they laugh at Zeus and his sex-escapes, while we laugh at Zeus and his tantrums in Percy Jackson. From this lesson, I realized that everything in our lives that we take for granted and in 2d, has a history. Just like how the two words of Greek mythology have a huge span of stories and culture over hundreds of years old, other words and ideas (like the bible even if it’s worthless to me) also have a history. Before I wrote this, I was watching a video about the history of the letter f. It went through a lot of character changes and different languages until it ultimately ended up in the alphabet. This video and the lesson today made me realize how much of today was built on yesterday, and how much history is hidden right beneath our eyes; we just need to look for it.