Throughout history, the concept of death and an afterlife has always been present regardless of the culture or religion. It has also been very influential in literature and other writings. In the epic poem The Odyssey, by Homer, there is a portrayal of the Greek beliefs of the afterlife. The Bible addresses this theme as well in the gospel of Matthew. Between these two works, there are noticeable differences about the beliefs of death due to the different cultures in which they were written. Despite the many variations, there are some slight similarities regarding the afterlife. Although the two writings were composed in different cultures and time periods, the notions of an afterlife in each piece can be easily related.
Most cultures generally share a universal belief that there is some form of an afterlife. In the gospel of Matthew, the idea of life after death is shown through the teachings of Jesus. Since Jesus is considered to be the Son of God, he preaches that once the body of a human has died, their soul continues to live on. Although they are physically dead on Earth, the spirit of the person moves on to the next life. Jesus says to his followers “I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). His Father’s kingdom refers to the notion of heaven, where all souls gather after their death on Earth. The Christian belief in the gospel of where the soul goes after death is very different from the Greek view portrayed by Homer.
The view of death in The Odyssey is similar in some ways to the Christian depiction. There is still the belief that the physical body remains on Earth while the soul continues into the afterlife. ...
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...e similarities. The Odyssey reflects the views and beliefs of the Greek culture during the time of Homer. There is the idea that all souls are sent to the underworld after their mortal body has died. In the gospel of Matthew, the teachings of Jesus are used to portray the afterlife. He tells his disciples that they will all be together in the Kingdom of God after they die. The afterlife discussed in the Bible is based more on belief and faith. There is so much uncertainty in the Christian religion, so the people just have to believe that there is an afterlife. This is different from the tangible underworld that Odysseus visited in The Odyssey. Both the writings of Matthew and The Odyssey depict the cultures in which they were written. Matthew discusses the views of the emerging Christian faith, while Homer uses his work to display the ancient Greek culture.
are very similar, but the movie portrays the book in a unique, interesting way. The movie has most of the characters the book has, but some of the characters do their part in a different way in the movie, that is what makes this new way of the book intreging. For example, the god of the sea, Poseiden is associated with water, the twist the movie puts on this character in the movie is instead of using water the Poseiden character, the sheriff, is associated with fire. These characters display irony because water and fire are opposites, which makes the movie have their own twist on the book. The Odyssey in a certain order. For the movie to be unique, it has the events in a different order. When readers read The Odyssey one character that appears in the middle of the piece is Teiresius. What makes the movie different from the novel is that the character Teiresius shows up closer to the beginning. Another example that makes the two pieces different from one another is the crew they travel along with. Odysseus’ crew actually all die off, but Pete and Delmar never die and stick by Everett for the whole movie.
Despite the fact that there are many differences present when comparing and contrasting Star Wars and the Odyssey, there were multiple similarities between the two stories. Arguably one of the most evident of those similarities was the crossing of the threshold in the two separate stories. This was the most evidently similar because both of the thresholds used the archetype of death to significantly describe the threshold. In the Odyssey the crossing of the threshold occurred when Odysseus crossed into the Land of the Dead. The crossing of the threshold was described in the Odyssey by Odysseus saying “Then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead,...” (Homer 11.1). While the crossing of the threshold in Star Wars was when Luke Skywalker,
The Western philosophical tradition has developed numerous viewpoints on, and fostered various attitudes toward, our mortal nature. There was once a situation where people regarded death as a theme and we shall die. In Western Attitudes Toward Death and Dying (1974) Aries proposes that death itself has, from the early medieval period onward, undergone a series of gradual yet discernible changes, which he titles “tame death,” “one 's own death,” “thy death,” and “forbidden or wild death.” This fourfold division centers directly on how people experience and understand death. As such, it stands as a peculiar history, one that often eschews more visible changes (e.g., the Reformation) in favor of less discernible shifts present in literature, art (including funerary art), liturgy, burial practices, and wills. It is characterized by the use or assumption
While the Indus people believed in reincarnation, the re-emergence of human life in different forms and states, the Egyptians’ main aim was to make a successful journey to the afterlife, once someone passed on, in order to join their immortal gods, especially Osiris, the god of the underworld (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d). Suffice to say, the two civilization believed in immortality and knew death to be a temporary feature – a bridge connecting one’s present life and their
One of the greatest and oldest human mysteries on Earth is death, and the fate that lies beyond it. The curious minds of human beings constantly wonder about the events that occur after death. No person truly knows what happens after a person ceases to live in the world, except for the people themselves who have passed away. As a result, over the course of history, people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions have speculated and believed in numerous different possibilities for the destiny that awaits them beyond the world of the living. The great ambiguity of the afterlife is extremely ancient that many different beliefs about it have been dated back to several centuries ago. These beliefs go as far back to the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians, which outline the journey that the dead travels to the land of Osiris; and the belief of Ancient Greeks that all souls eventually find themselves in Hades’ realm, the Underworld. Throughout history, views and beliefs from emerging religions continue to develop as the human conscience persists in finding answers to this ancient, unresolved mystery. Prime examples of the various and separate beliefs regarding death and the afterlife are found in the diverse faiths of Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism.
“Where Are the Dead? What Happens When You Die? | Bible Teach.” JW.ORG, Accessed 5 Sept. 2017. www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/where-are-the-dead/
This theme of death giving meaning to life is prevalent throughout the Odyssey. Hell is death, heaven is now, in life, in the field of time and action.
“Death, the end of life: the time when someone or something dies” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). The definition of death is quite simple, the end of life is inescapable. I chose to write about death and impermanence because it is something we all must inevitably face. People often deal with death in a number of different ways. Although it is something that we must eventually face, it can be hard to come to terms with because the idea can be hard to grasp. Some of us fear it, others are able to accept it, either way we all must eventually face it. In this essay I will look at two different literary works about death and impermanence and compare and contrast the different elements of the point of view, theme, setting, and symbolism. The comparison of these particular works will offer a deeper look into words written by the authors and the feelings that they experiencing at that particular time.
The protagonist, Odysseus, visits the underworld for a very short amount of time. The two literary works contain many common elements, such as characters being punished, the protagonists interacting with those in the underworld, repeating characters, and the misery of the underworlds. There are also differences between the two works including the types of interactions between the protagonists and those they encounter, the reasons for each protagonists visit to the underworlds, and how the underworld operates. These differences and similarities can be attributed to the Dante’s and Homer’s religion, the time period and culture in which they wrote their respective works, and the purpose for the visits to the underworlds in each work. Although there are many similarities between the underworlds in Dante’s Inferno and The Odyssey, the two works ultimately offer two different visions of the underworld due to the authors’ different religious beliefs and culture, as well as the role of the underworld in each literary work.
There has long been a fashion among critics and historians, including Sir James Frazier and Graham Hancock, to insist upon taking the account of Odysseus' voyage to Hades in Book XI of the Odyssey at near face-value as a description of people and places familiar to a Greek audience of Homer's day. Both linguistics and comparative history have been employed to discover exactly how accurately this originally oral epic conveys this gritty realism. Something, however, is not right with this purely empiric approach. What is missing is an examination through the lens of ancient religious practices. Surely a literary work so teeming with deities-wise Athena, spiteful Poseidon, impish Hermes, omnipotent Zeus-deserves such study.
The Ancient Greeks sought to define how humans should view their lives and how to create an existence dedicated to the basis of the “ideal” nature. This existence would be lived so as to create an “honorable” death upon their life’s end. Within their plays, both dramas and comedies, they sought to show the most extreme characteristics of human nature, those of the wise and worthy of Greek kleos along with the weak and greedy of mind, and how they were each entitled to a death but of varying significance. The Odyssey, their greatest surviving drama, stands as the epitome of defining both the flawed and ideal human and how each individual should approach death and its rewards and cautions through their journeys. Death is shown to be the consequence
Returning to the quotation “… the great leveler, Death: not even the gods/ can defend a man, not even one they love, that day/ when fate takes hold and lays him out at last’” (Homer 3.269-271). Death is a power that surpasses the gods. In The Odyssey we are introduced to gods who control the water, the wind, and the decisions of men. They can bring peace and war, but the one thing they cannot do is prevent a mortal’s fated death. This alone shows how central death is to The Odyssey. The power that death holds rivals no others in this story, there is “… no escape from death” (Homer 12.483). Death is a constant threat for Odysseus throughout this story, and the future foretold for Odysseus by Tiresias is not one of his life being a good one but of “…your own death will steal upon you…/ a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes to take you down…” (Homer 11.153-154). His fortune ends not with his happy life, but with his eventual death. This scene is crucial because it draws the reader back not to the life that Odysseus will have once he has successfully returned home and killed the suitors but the death that he will experience. It draws it back to when and where Odysseus will die and take his place among the
The Egyptians believed very much in life after death. As Taylor states in Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, “It is often observed that they appear to have devoted greater efforts and resources to preparing for the afterlife than to creating a convenient environment for living” (Taylor, 2001:12). The Egyptians viewed life on earth as one stage and death as the beginning of another. They believed that, “human existence did not end with death and that survival of the body played a part in the new life” (Taylor, 2001:12). One of the key elements in the Egyptian culture and religion was the preservation of the body. The body was the most important aspect because it was like a portal through which an individual could continue to live after death (Taylor, 2001:46). The Egyptians began building tombs for these bodies to keep them from decaying.
In the Odyssey there is a distinct relationship that is shared between the mortals and the Gods. In the link with Christian faith, the Gods in the Odyssey are physically present. The Gods help, lend assistance, support and mentor the mortals. They can be ‘compared to that of a guardian angel’ (FORP). In comparison, the gods have their favourites which my result in the negativity towards a mortal from a particular God. As so the mortals are at the mercy of Gods. Majority of the time the mortals benefit greatly from the Gods and can be seen to transform for the better.
The Underworld is a place where most souls of the dead live. “The Odyssey”and “Enkidu 's Dream” are two stories that describe how the underworld would be like when one encounters it. The Odyssey describes the underworld as a place filled with unhappiness and misery and that punishment will be served in the underworld to the wrongdoers . While, Enkidu 's Dream describes the underworld ad a very dark, unpleasant and scary place to be in, where no one looks forward to pass away due to it. Accepting fate and having fate plays a major role in both stories. Odysseus in The Odyssey accepted his fate, while Enkidu in “Enkidu 's Dream”had fate, but did not accept it. The Odyssey and “Enkidu 's Dream” have a similar concept on what a person can experience in an afterlife taken place in the underworld as a dreadful and awful setting