Goblin Market Revisions done

            Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in London from 1830 to 1894. She started writing at the age of seven and published her first poem at the age of eighteen. Rossetti comes from a family of writers; her siblings and her father were all a form of inspirational writers. During the 1840s her family encountered financial issues due to her father’s health which caused Rossetti to drop out of school. Rossetti has written many poems such as The Face of the Deep, The Germ, and one of her famous works The Goblin Market. The Goblin Market was published in 1862 when she was thirty one years old. This famous literature of hers is about temptation in the Victorian era and female gender roles. On December 29, 1894 she passed away due to breast cancer.
            The poem "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti is about two sisters Lizzie and Laura who are walking by the brook fetching water. As they walk Laura feels tempted by the goblins who are selling fruits. Lizzie warns Laura about the goblin's poisonous fruits. However, Laura does not comply to her warnings about the fruits the goblins are selling so she pays for the fruits with her golden lock of hair due to the lack of money she has in her pocket. Soon after eating the delicious fruit she finds herself deaf and blind the following day. Seeing that Laura is so hopeless and sicken Lizzie returns to the Goblin Market. At the goblin Market Lizzie gets beaten and thrown fruits because she paid the goblins with real money instead of a piece of her. Lizzie returns home all bruised up demanding that Laura licks the remaining juices from her mouth. The next day Laura becomes well once again and a few years later, each sister got married and raised children of their own telling this story to their kids.
           Rosetti uses many literature terms in which has hidden messages. For example Lizzie tells Laura "we must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits( 42-42). This line means the goblins that they are passing by are like devils who sell forbidden items in the black market. These goblins lure in young girls and sell them unnecessary things so they can come back for more. In line 126 and 127, she (Laura) clipp'd a precious golden lock. and she dropp'd a tear more rare than pearl." Laura clips her precious golden hair which symbolizes her precious virginity. Lizzie tells Laura not to even look at the men or she will become tempted into their mischievous traps. "Fruits which that unknown orchard bore," these fruits are the mysterious temptations that Laura lusts for. Although Lizzie tells Laura not to get involved with the goblin men but Laura cannot help but return to the fruits that calls out for her. In lines 466-471 Lizzie tells Laura "come hug me, kiss me, suck my juices, eat me, drink me, and love me." These lines represents what Laura lusts for throughtout the poem. She craves for love and affection for which her sister can only give her. No goblin men nor fruits can satisfy Laura's mind and body.

            The archetypes in this poem are the goblins, Lizzie, and Laura. The Goblins are identified as an archetype because they are viewed as evil sins where Laura is human and cannot resist herself from her flaws. Everyone is not purely good and innocent because without evil there is no good. Lizzie is acknowledged as the good sin, where she helps Laura through her sinful flaws.

            This poem represents Adam and Eve where human kind faces good and evil. Christina Rossetti puts Laura to face her sins and Lizzie as the good ego. This poem tells us readers that human kind temptations are all apart of life and resistance is an important factor to maintain while facing difficult situations.

Symbolism revisions done

The Kiss

BY ROBERT GRAVES

Are you shaken, are you stirred

By a whisper of love,

Spellbound to a word

Does Time cease to move,

Till her calm grey eye

Expands to a sky

And the clouds of her hair

Like storms go by?

Then the lips that you have kissed

Turn to frost and fire,

And a white-steaming mist

Obscures desire:

So back to their birth

Fade water, air, earth,

And the First Power moves

Over void and dearth.

Is that Love? no, but Death,

A passion, a shout,

The deep in-breath,

The breath roaring out,

And once that is flown,

You must lie alone,

Without hope, without life,

Poor flesh, sad bone.

Poetry Link

Symbolisms:

Shaken, Stirred, Whisper, Spellbound, cease, move, clam, grey, eye, sky, clouds, hair, storms, lips, kissed, frost, fire, white-streaming mist, Obscures desire, Fade water, air, earth, roaring, hope, passion, shout, life, flesh, bone

Denotation: Shaken, Stirred, Whisper are all of sounds of when a person is frighten or nervous.

Connotation: The connotation of these sounds represent emotional sexuality.

Denotation: Spellbound is the act of being completely captivated

Connotation: The connotation of spellbound is when one is put under hypnosis.

Denotation: Grey is a color.

Connotation: The color grey can mean calm or depressed.

Denotation: Both hair, and lips are body parts of a human

Connotation: The connotation of hair and lips represents the sexuality of a woman when she is trying to receive attention from the opposite sex.

Denotation: White-steaming is a color that is very pale and ghostly.

Connotation: White-streaming can mean pure and innocence.

Denotation: The definition of frost is the process of freezing.

Connotation: Frost can mean death where an individual turns cold and freezes over. When one dies, the individual will turn cold and lifeless.

Denotation: Fire is the destruction of burning something.

Connotation: Fire represents aliveness, warmth, passion, and anger.

Denotation: Desire means when one craves for something that he or she cannot have.

Connotation: Desire represents lust and temptation towards sexuality.

Denotation: The definition of fading water is when water slowly drifts away.

Connotation: Water represents rebirth and purity.

Denotation: The definition of Death is lifeless.

Connotation: Death means the end of being alive or the act sinfulness causing purity to die.

              Robert Graves born on July 24, 1895 was a famous English poet. Graves produced more than 140 literature works. Robert Graves favored in writing Greek myths such as The Twelve Caesars and Claudius the God. One poem I decided to analyze was “The Kiss”, this poem is very out of the ordinary because it describes a frightening image of a girl being raped. Robert Graves adds in different elemental moods into this poem to signify the supernatural.

            “The Kiss” starts off with a question “are you shaken, are you stirred?” This first line represents fright. When an individual is nervous or scared he or she may shiver.  The word love is like a spell, once the word love is said to a girl, the girl automatically thinks it’s the end of the world. Grey symbolizes maturity or sadness. Her eyes stare off into space when the word love is whispered, all while that happens, time seems to stop for her. This relates to the quote “my heart skips a beat whenever I’m with you.”  Every time you’re with a special person you would want time to stop in one place. What Robert Grave is saying in this poem  is love is like a spell that makes time stop in the imaginary mind.

            In the second stanza, “then the lips that you have kissed turn to frost and fire” , which means that when the girl in this poem is kissed she feels a sudden life and death. The white- steaming mist and faded water symbolizes her purity and innocence. White symbolizes purity; mist represents fading and something going away.  Which means her purity is taken due to temptations and desires. Robert Graves adds in the elements such as water, air, and earth all which have tremendous amounts of meaning. Air can symbolize many things that involve in the mind. Strong winds can symbolize trouble because when winds blow, it is hard to get back up and walk through. Foggy air symbolizes cloudy minds, which means the girl in the poem perhaps cannot think properly or see due to the spell she is under. According to Jung’s interpretation water means rebirth and refreshment.  The girl in this poem believes in the word love so much she feels like she is the goddess of the earth.

            In the third stanza Robert Graves starts off with another question. “Is that love? No, but death” a word such as love is a powerful word that many young girls will fall for. In this last paragraph Robert Graves quotes sounds of someone breathing hard. Either the girl got raped or got into a passionate argument with her “lover.” Graves ends the poem with “without hope, without life” which means she is lying there sorrowfully regretting all alone. 

Definitions taken from Dictionary.com

Final Essay

      This class has been the most interesting class I've taken so far. I've enjoyed working on the computer while taking my own pace. Professor Smith is really great, I would take another class and recommend him to anybody. This class has even made me think about switching majors into the literature field. Throughout this term I have learned to use Wikipedia efficiently. A few English teachers will say "don't use the encyclopedia for research or don't ever use Wikipedia." well they are wrong, if it wasn't for Wikipedia I wouldn't have known what monolythic structure is. If you search for monolythic structure on Google there will only be a Wikipedia website and a yahoo questionnaire. Wikipedia is great for basic understanding on the topic you are writing about. If it wasn't for Wikipedia I wouldn't have been able to finish my project because my project is based on the monolythic structure. The day the professor was explaining the monolythic structure, I was not in class so I used the link that he gave us to see what it was about. The Wikipedia website gave descriptive examples and even a diagram for our understandings. Overall I learned a lot in this class from archetype personalities, to symbols in almost anything we encounter in life. I never knew waving your hand was a symbol of giving a short air hug.
     What I found interesting was Jiwan's blog entry 1.2. As you know, he is Korean but a very spiritual Korean. Most of the Koreans I know believe in god and they don't really believe in spirits. This spirit dokkaebi is very interesting because in the Chinese culture we don't have a spirit who is as playful as dokkaebi. It is true, that many people mistaken ghosts as spirits and are very frighten by the existence of spirits. The way that dokkaebi is described by Jiwan, is a different perspective I have finally encountered. My family believes in spirits which shocked me because a lot of times on television you hear all these scary stories about spirits or ghosts haunting someone. It's nice to know that supposedly there's a nice spirit floating around.

Blog Entry 4.3 Final Project

There has been many versions of "Clash of the titan", movies, books, and even cartoons but it first began as a novel written by Alan Dean Foster in 1981. It portrays the heroic tale of the protagonist Perseus in his pursuit to avenge his family untimely death from the evil Greek mythological god Hades. This story embarks you to embrace your mind in the world where demons and gods rule humanity, where creatures of the sea strike fear in the heart of man and winged horses soar over the heavenly clouds.I will be focusing on analyzing the latest film of Clash of the Titans that came out in the year 2010, where Perseus starts off with  an orphan archetype and then transforms himself into a warrior. The film starts off when the titans is overruled by their sons Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Zeus becomes the ruler of the heavens, Poseidon became king of the seas, and Hades was left to rule the dreadful underworld. 

Zeus whom created mankind was questioned by mortals on their abilities and their rights to rule over them, so to teach the rebellious King Acrisius a lesson Zeus impersonated Acrisius and slept with his wife, Danae. This is the result of the birth of Zeus' mortal son, Perceus. As Perseus is born, Acrisius condemns the execution of Danae and her newborn child into the sea. This causes Zeus to zap thunder on Acrisius, leaving him hideous for life. Thunder is the symbol of power and anger from Zeus.

Perseus' life starts when he is founded and adopted by a fisherman named Spyros. He is known to be born so that he can defeat the Kraken. Perseus’ hero quest starts when his family and he were floating by Argos. As they are floating by Argos, they start to envy the statue of the Greek god Zeus. However, as they are envying the statue, soldiers of Argos are also declaring war against the gods, by destroying the statue of Zeus. This causes the underworld god to rise up to land in form of black pixies called Harpies to eliminate the Argos soldiers. When Hades finishes killing off the soldiers, he stares into Perseus’s face with a fierce look, Hades then turns into a fireball and strikes the boat which leads to the death of Perseus’ family.

Perseus is rescued by the remaining soldiers in Argos, whom are celebrating their act upon revolt. Hades returns once again in the shape of a smoky fog like hurricane. The wind in the hurricane symbolizes violence because wind is very active and can do rapid damage to mother earth. The smoky color that Hades gives off is the symbol of evil, unhappiness, sadness and fear. The reason behind this is because when the gods overthrown the titans, Zeus tricked Hades into becoming the underworld god. The Underworld god is an outcast to Olympus because he is to watch over the underworld and does not belong in the heavens with others. Hades comes just when Queen Cassiopeia finishes her speech on how her daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodite. Hades makes the people of Argos fearful of him by killing off the soldiers around Perseus and aging Queen Cassiopeia to death. Hades warns Argos if princess Andromeda is not sacrificed the Kraken will rise up in ten days when the sun is eclipsed. Hades leaves by facing Perseus with the finishing quote, “this is the will of Zeus, the will of your father.” Another symbolism for Hades is when he appears in front of Perseus there is sparks around his aura which symbolizes chaos and war. This causes the villagers to plead for Perseus’ help in defeating the Kraken. Perseus refuses to help the villagers and the princess because he does not believe he is a demigod since his father is a fisherman. Perseus is locked up in a dungeon where a magician archetype, Io finally introduces herself. Io who also is a demigoddess (part women and part goddess) reveals Perseus’s true identity about his mother and father. During Io’s image of the story of Zeus and Danae, Zeus appears in a shape of an eagle, while he is seducing Danae, it is thundering and raining outside. The eagle signifies inspiration, ruler, power, authority, community, masculinity, and guardianship. Io continues to meantion that Perseus was destined to defeat the Kraken. Perseus’ state of mind sets only to seek revenge for his family. Io helps determine Perseus' decision on his adventure for vengeance. Io is a big impact on Perseus' hero's quest because she is his mentor throughout his journey

While resting in the forest one of the Argos soliders tries to bring out the “god” out of Perseus by training him in using a sword. After Perseus’ training, Perseus encounters a series of items such as a shiny sword that only he can use and a flying black horse named Pegasus. Minutes later Perseus hears two of his Argos comrades yelling out for help. Calibos also known as Acrisius appears to exterminate Perseus and the others. Calibos the demon like human being kills off most of the Argos soldiers and takes a bite out of Perseus’ flesh. Just then, Draco one of the praetorian guards, finds an opportunity to cut off Calibos’ hand, causing his blood to form giant scorpions. The scorpions in this film symbolize death, control, isolation, protection, and defense. Calibos is hung up on the fact that he is still defeated by Zeus because he murdered his wife for nothing. Being that Perseus is still alive, destroys his pride on what he fought for in the past. Calibos decides to flee because he is outnumbered with only one hand and six men. Perseus soon meets the guardian of the desert known as a Djinn. Perseus wants to thank the Djinn but cannot take another step due to the posion from Calibos. One of the Argos solider tells him to pray to his father. However Perseus does not believe he needs any of the help or gifts from the gods. He still thinks that he is a mere mortal man who can take on this adventure by himself. The Djinn helps heal Perseus’ venomous wound and controls the rest of the scorpions. The Djinn believes that the gods should be overthrown and in order to stand up to them they should all work together.

Perseus and eight others are off to the wicked old witches. When they arrive to the witches’ lair, this scene becomes very intense and imaged very well around this archetype. The witches are in a dark deserted place. There are three witches who symbolize past, present, and future. These witches do not have eyes on their heads but they do have one eye that they share among themselves so that they can see. Perseus and the others ask one too many questions, so the witches demand that one of their men is to be sacrificed in order to receive another answer. Therefore Perseus steals their eye so that the witches would tell him how the Kraken can be defeated. He returns the eye as soon as they tell him that Medusa can turn anything into stone with her gaze. After leaving the witches lair, Perseus runs into Zeus whom asks him to return to Olympus where he rightfully belongs. Perseus refuses because he does not believe that he is part god. Due to Perseus’ refusal Zeus gives Perseus a golden Medusa coin as a token to the underworld.

The two villagers Ozal and Kucuk decide that they can no longer travel any longer with Perseus on his journey. As a gift they craft a shield made from the scorpions they have defeated together. Io tells the men that Medusa was not a beast at one point. Medusa was so beautiful, Poseidon could not help but become tempted in her enduring looks. Medusa goes to Athena’s temple for protection, but Athena did not show any grief towards her. Instead Athena cursed Medusa with a look of stone. Meaning any men that gazes into her eyes will turn into stone, women on the other hand cannot be harmed by her curse. Medusa symbolizes many things in literature. For example Medusa, in the form of a Greek word metis represents feminine wile. When the gods created women they portrayed the women image into Medusa. Medusa also means ruler, queen, or guardian. In this century women are very mysterious and can lure men into a lot of trouble. Her physical features also resemble a rattle snake which symbolizes rebirth, cycle, fertility, balance, protection, transformation, and both gender. The snake on her heads have these different meaning because in the old movie Clash of the Titans, when Medusa’s head was chopped off, her children arose from her blood. The blood that gave birth to her children symbolizes rebirth from the menstruation system of females. When Medusa’s head gets chopped off the snake symbolizes the balance in life because when one dies others will be born to replace her. Five of Perseus’ men get eliminated by Medusa, and Perseus finally beheads her with the help of a mirror shield. The reflection of the mirror symbolizes self knowledge,and revelation. The mirroring shield foreshadows the relation of a true demigod within him. As Perseus leaves Medusa’s lair he watches Io get stabbed by Calibos. Enraged, Perseus stabs Calibos with a regular sword he picked up from the Argos village. He soon realizes in order to save Io and the others, he may need the help of the gods because he is the only one who made it out of Medusa's lair alive. If no mortal or demigoddess can withstand Calibos, who else can? Perseus picks up the sword he received from the gods and stabs Calibos with it. Calibos turns into his human form with the last words” Perseus, don’t become one of them.” Io returns to Olympus while Perseus sets off on Pegasus to Argos.

As the eclipse nears, Zeus orders the Kraken to awaken from the underworld to make the villagers fearful of Hades and to accept Zeus once again. The Kraken who is created by Hades is the one who controls and leeches off the fear of humans. The more fearful the citizens are, the weaker Zeus becomes, and the more power Hades will have. Perseus shows Medusa’s head to the Kraken and saves Andromeda. Perseus banishes Hades back into the underworld with the help of his father’s lightning bolted sword. Andromeda asks Perseus to become king of Argos but he refuses to become a king. Zeus comes back to land and proposes to have him return to Olympus. Perseus now a warrior archetype accepts his power of a demigod and decides to stay on land to protect those from Hades who may rise again.

Work Cited
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/snake-symbolic-meaning.html
http://www.slantmagazine.com/images/film/clashofthetitans2010.jpg
http://www.movieviral.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/clash_of_the_titans.jpg
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OfgT9yfBfwMJ:medusa.plush.org/analysis.shtml+medusa+snake+symbolism&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
http://www.theoi.com/Ther/Skorpios.html
http://www.wildideas.net/temple/library/letters/archetypes.html
http://www.symbolism.org/writing/books/sp/6/home.html
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/symbol-meaning-of-scorpion.html
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/symbolic-eagle-meaning.html
http://www.three-musketeers.net/mike/elements.html
http://www.three-musketeers.net/mike/colors.html
http://www.shockya.com/news/wp-content/uploads/clash_of_the_titans_horse_sword_poster.jpg
http://www.helium.com/items/975844-story-of-medusa-in-greek-mythology
http://heritage-key.com/HKimages/002/clash_titans_2010_edit.jpg

Blog Entry 4.2

Perseus and eight others are off to the wicked old witches. When they arrive to the witches’ lair, this scene becomes very intense and imaged very well around them. The witches are in a dark deserted place. There are three witches who symbolize past, present, and future. These witches do not have eyes on their heads but they do have one eye that they share among themselves so that they can see. Perseus and the others ask one too many questions, so the witches demand that one of their men is to be sacrificed in order to receive another answer. Therefore Perseus steals their eye so that the witches would tell him how the Kraken can be defeated. He returns the eye as soon as they tell him that Medusa can turn anything into stone with her gaze. After leaving the witches lair, Perseus runs into Zeus whom asks him to return to Olympus where he rightfully belongs. Perseus refuses because he does not believe that he is part god. Due to Perseus’ refusal Zeus gives Perseus a golden Medusa coin as a token to the underworld.

The two villagers Ozal and Kucuk decide that they can no longer travel any longer with Perseus on his journey. As a gift they craft a shield made from the scorpions they have defeated together. Io tells the men that Medusa was not a beast at one point. Medusa was so beautiful, Posedon could not help but become tempted in her enduring looks. Medusa goes to Athena’s temple for protection, but Athena did not show any grief towards her. Instead Athena cursed Medusa with a look of stone. Meaning any men that gazes into her eyes will turn into stone, women on the other hand cannot be harmed by her curse. Medusa symbolizes many things in literature. For example Medusa, in the form of a Greek word metis represents feminine wile. When the gods created women they portrayed the women image into Medusa. Medusa also means ruler, queen, or quardian. In this century women are very mysterious and can lure men into a lot of trouble. Her physical features also resemable a rattle snake which symbolizes rebirth, cycle, fertility, balance, protection, transformation, and both gender. The snake on her heads have these different meaning because in the old movie Clash of the Titans, when Medusa’s head was chopped off, her children arose from her blood. The blood that gave birth to her children symbolizes rebirth from the menstruation system of females. When Medusa’s head gets chopped off the snake symbolizes the balance in life because when one dies others will be born to replace her. Five of Perseus’ men get eliminated by Medusa, and Perseus finally beheads her with the help of a mirror shield. The reflection of the mirror symbolizes self knowledge,and revelation. The mirroring shield foreshadows the relation of a true demigod within him. As Perseus leaves Medusa’s lair he watches Io get stabbed by Calibos. Enraged, Perseus stabs Calibos with a regular sword he picked up from the Argos village. He soon realizes in order to save Io, he may need the help of the gods. Perseus picks up the sword he received from the gods and stabs Calibos with it. Calibos turns into his human form with the last words” Perseus, don’t become one of them.” Io returns to Olympus while Perseus sets off on Pegasus to Argos.

As the eclipse nears, Zeus orders the Kraken to awaken from the underworld to make the villagers fearful of him and to accept him once again. The kraken that is created by Hades is the one who controls and leeches off the fear of humans. The more fearful the citizens are, the weaker Zeus beomces, and the more power Hades will have. Perseus shows Medusa’s head to the Kraken and saves Andromeda. Perseus banishes Hades back into the underworld with the help of his father’s lightning bolted sword. Andromeda asks Perseus to become king of Argos but refuses to become a king. Zeus comes back land and proposes to have him return to Olympus. Perseus accepts his power of a demigod and decides to stay on land to protect those from Hades who may rise again.

Blog Entry 4.1

After spending a week trying to put together a list of monsters and their abilities I've decided to take a different path. I've decided to analyze the movie Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans was started when the titans were overruled by their sons Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Zeus became the ruler of the heavens, Poseidon became king of the seas, and Hades was left to rule the dreadful underworld. Clash of the Titans is about the greek mythology of the demigod named Perseus who is one of Zeus’s son.

Zeus whom created mankind was questioned by mortals on their abilities and their rights to rule over them, so to teach the rebellious king Acrisius a lesson Zeus impersonated Acrisius and slept with his wife Danae. This is the result of Perseus’s birth. As Perseus is born, Acrisius condemns the execution of Danae and her newborn child into the sea. This caused Zeus to zap thunder on Acrisius leaving him hideous for life. Thunder is the symbol of power and anger from Zeus.

Perseus’s life starts when he is founded and adopted by a fisherman named Spyros. He is known to be born so that he can defeat the Kraken. Perseus’s hero quest starts when his family and he were floating by Argos. As they are floating by Argos, they start to envy the statue of the Greek god Zeus. However, as they are envying the statue, soldiers of Argos are also declaring war against the gods, by destroying the statue of Zeus. This causes the underworld god to rise up to land in form of black pixies called Harpies to eliminate the Argo soldiers. When Hades finishes killing off the soldiers, he stares into Perseus’s face with a fierce look, Hades then turns into a fireball and strikes the boat which leads to the death of Perseus’s family.

Perseus is rescued by the remaining soldiers in Argos, whom are celebrating their act upon revolt. Hades returns once again in the shape of a smoky fog like hurricane. The wind in the hurricane symbolizes violence because wind is very active and can do rapid damage to mother earth. The smoky color that Hades gives off is the symbol of evil, unhappiness, sadness and fear. The reason behind this is because when the gods overthrown the titans, Zeus tricked Hades into becoming the underworld god. The Underworld god is an outcast to Olympus because he is to watch over the underworld and does not belong in the heavens with others. Hades comes just when Queen Cassiopeia finishes her speech on how her daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodite. Hades makes the people of Argos fearful of him by killing off the soldiers around Perseus and aging Queen Cassiopeia to death. Hades warns Argos if princess Andromeda is not sacrificed the Kraken will rise up in ten days when the sun is eclipsed. Hades leaves by facing Perseus with the finishing quote, “this is the will of Zeus, the will of your father.” Another symbolism for Hades is when he appears in front of Perseus there is sparks around his aura which symbolizes chaos and war. This causes the villagers to plead for Perseus’ help in defeating the Kraken. Perseus refuses to help the villagers and the princess because he does not believe he is a demigod since his father is a fisherman. Perseus is locked up in a dungeon where Io finally introduces herself. Io who also is a demigoddess (part women and part goddess) reveals Perseus’s true identity about his mother and father. During Io’s image of the story of Zeus and Danae, Zeus appears in a shape of an eagle, while he is seducing Danae, it is thundering and raining outside. The eagle signifies inspiration, ruler, power, authority, community, masculinity, and guardianship. Io continues to meantion that Perseus was destined to defeat the Kraken. Perseus’ state of mind sets only to seek revenge for his family. Io helps determine Perseus decision on his adventure for vengeance.

While resting in the forest one of the Argo soliders tries to bring out the “god” out of Perseus by training him in using a sword. After Perseus’s training, Perseus encounters a series of items such as a shiny sword that only he can use and a flying black horse named Pegasus. A few seconds later Perseus hears two of his Argo comrades yelling out for help. Calibos also known as Acrisius appears to exterminate Perseus and the others. Calibos the demon like human being kills off most of the Argo soldiers and takes a bite out of Perseus’ flesh. Just then, Draco one of the praetorian guards, finds an opportunity to cut off Calibos’ hand, causing his blood to form giant scorpions. The scorpions in this film symbolize death, control, isolation, protection, and defense. Calibos is hung up on the fact that he is still defeated by Zeus because he murdered his wife for nothing. Being that Perseus is still alive, destroys his pride on what he fought for in the past. Calibos decides to flee because he is outnumbered with only one hand and six men. Perseus soon meets the guardian of the desert known as a Djinn. Perseus wants to thank the Djinn but cannot take another step due to the posion from Calibos. One of the Argo solider tells him to pray to his father. However Perseus does not believe he needs any of the help or gifts from the gods. He still thinks that he is a mere mortal man who can take on this adventure by himself. The Djinn helps heal Perseus’s venomous wound and controls the rest of the scorpions. The Djinn believes that the gods should be overthrown and in order to stand up to them they should all work together.

Blog Entry 3.5

In the novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is a wanderer archetype. Although she has a mother and a father, her parents often tell her to go play by herself. Since she had just moved into a new house she would often go exploring by herself. A wanderer archetype is a individualistic, pioneer, autonomous, divergent thinker, a loner, and a rebel. They are afraid in closeness and they also have trouble fitting in with others(the Heroic Myth Test). Out of all these traits I find that Coraline and I have the same archetype as each other.

In chapter one, “on the first day Coraline’s family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it.” However, despite the warning Coraline still explores for the well. This tells us readers that she is a rebel. Perhaps she is a rebel because she has no siblings to play around with. A wanderer’s negative traits are lonesome and they have trouble fitting in. Every time she tries to receive attention from her parents, they tell her to go occupy herself. Since she receives no attention from her parents, this could mean that her parents never taught her from right and wrong. Parents who do not give their child any attention and let them wander by themselves will often find that their children will grow up as rebellious. This trait of Coraline is the same as mine. My parents owned two restaurants while I was growing up. Therefore whenever I tried to get them to play with me, they would just tell me to go play by myself. This often led me to get into trouble because they would rarely keep an eye out for me. Coraline is also very curious, since she does not have any siblings to spend time with her she tries to learn things by herself. A child will always be a child, when a parent tells them not to do something, the child will do it. That’s because the child is still learning. If I were to tell someone don’t do this, of course that person will go ahead and do it because why else would you tell me not to do it. In chapter three, while Coraline is going school shopping with her mother Coraline exclaims, "But Mum, everybody at school’s got gray blouses and everything. Nobody’s got green gloves. I could be the only one." This quote helps us understand that she is different from everybody else. Although everyone is wearing gray blouses she rather have green gloves because she is rebellious and thinks differently from other children.

Another trait of Coraline is that she is an individualistic and a divergent thinker. In chapter thirteen when her other mother’s hand tried to get a hold of the black key. Coraline was the only one who thought of the brilliant plan of trapping her other mother’s hand down the well. She is individualistic because according to Robert Karen’s article on “Becoming Attached”, Coraline is represented as the ambivalent child. Due to her parents constantly working on the computer I can infer that Coraline’s parents were there occasionally from when she was an infant. This means that Coraline will grow up to only call out for help when she really needs to, other than that she was brought up to take care of herself. A great example of this behavior is when she asks for help from her other mother when she is trying to find the third missing child. After the trap that the other mother had set up for her in the basement she decides that she is unable to trust the other mother’s word. After this incident, she rarely asks anyone for help. Another example of Coraline’s ambivalent behavior is when her parents went missing. She was able to run to the store and pick out her own groceries so that she could feed herself. I can relate to Coraline’s individualistic behavior because as a child I could not work in a restaurant, so my grandmother was left at home to take care of me. She is old, so she practically laid in bed all day and watched television. I could understand that since she is old, I’d have to help my parents out by taking care of the house. The only time I called for help was when I needed help turning on the stove. Other than that, I had to figure out how to do laundry and many other things. I had trouble fitting in because I also did not have any friends who lived on my street. The neighbors I had were also one old lady and one old grumpy man. Which means as I grew older I became an individualistic with no friends that learned to trust myself than others.
    Coraline is a single child that has no friends her age. She learns to occupy herself with activities a normal child would do. If a child were to move into a new neighborhood, they would often explore to find if there is anything interesting they can go play with. It is normal for a child to wonder why there is a brick wall in a door and it is not occupied. A child always has new questions about the world behind them because they are still young. I find that most children are wanderers because  a lot of times they wander off in malls to find new friends or new toys. This archetype is very individualistic, they try to find a unique way of expressing themselves. Throughout this novel Coraline sets off to find something she is missing. Perhaps she really did want new parents that would play with her and cook her, her favorite food. But in this world, you can not always have everything your way. In the end she realizes she rather have two parents that let her do anything she wants to do rather than a bossy witch. She rather have her normal life than to be given everything she ever wanted because she is a wanderer, the other mother can not change who she really is. This is Coraline’s unique autonomous identity.