Saturday, January 28, 2017

Post 4: Archetypes in Metamorphoses

                    Metamorphoses, the collection of stories by the Poet Ovid, is a story that in itself is a creation story. It not only gives details on how certain things got to be how they are today, but Metamorphoses also offered answers to complicated concepts and non-explainable phenomena. It also contains archetypes, which are found not only in real life, but in other creation stories from various cultures.
                    One archetype found in Metamorphoses is the concept of love. Love is found in every aspect of human life, from love to another person or one's self, to love of an object or an idea. In Metamorphoses, Apollo discovers his first love in Daphne [733], although not through his own will. It is due to "Cupid's fierce anger" [733] that Apollo falls in love with Daphne, and conversely causes Daphne to reject Apollo continuously. This can be seen as a real life archetype, as rejection is a common thing in love, and sometimes a person will chase another person until it makes very little sense to do so (Daphne being turned to a laurel tree [734], for example.).
                    An archetype that is found in several creation stories is the concept of a great "doing away with" of the human race due to them displeasing the gods. This is found not only in the Bible with the Great Flood and Noah, but also in Metamorphoses when Jupiter floods the earth due to his anger with humanity [732-733]. Gods displaying power in a way to punish humans was a very common archetype in creation stories.

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