Pandora's Box Analysis

Gabrielle DeGori
ENG 103-65
Professor Gross
October 20, 2015

Contemporary: Pandora 's Box

The beginning of the story of Pandora is an interesting one. It begins with the Titan Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus. The Titan Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were spared imprisonment in Tartarus because they had kept their neutrality in the war between the Olympians and the Titans. According to the legend, Prometheus shaped man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into the clay figure. Once man was created, however, Prometheus allowed his brother, Epimetheus, to distribute various qualities to the animals and man. So Epimetheus began by giving the best traits to the animals. Traits like swiftness, courage, cunning, stealth, et cetera,

His primary affection was for man. Now mankind had to make animal sacrifices to the gods, but a certain portion of the animal was to be given to the gods and a certain portion to man. Zeus had to decide. So Prometheus made two piles. He wrapped the bones in juicy fat and he hid the meat under the ugly hide. Zeus chose the bones wrapped in fat, much to his anger. In retaliation Zeus deprived man of fire, but Prometheus was not to be stopped. He went up to heaven and lighted his torch at the sun and carried it back to earth. Zeus was livid and filled with rage when he saw that man had fire. He ordered that Hephaestus create a mortal of stunning beauty, and when Hephaestus had done so the gods gave this new creature many gifts. But Hermes gave it speech, a deceptive heart, and a lying tongue. This was the first woman, Pandora, and a worse calamity never befell man. Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus about accepting gifts from Zeus. Yet when Epimetheus saw this radiant creature Pandora he could not resist her. She had brought with her a box that she was forbidden to open. But being a woman, her curiosity won out. As she opened the lid a multitude of evils flew out and scattered over the world to afflict man. Still, there remained in the box one consolation for man — Hope. With all the misery Pandora had unleashed hope was the only thing that could keep mankind

In addition to anger at the sacrifice trick and the theft of fire, Zeus knew that Prometheus held the secret of the god who would finally dethrone him.
“And are you not a child and even more witless than a child if you expect to learn anything from me? There is no torment or device by which Zeus shall induce me to utter this until these injurious fetters are loosed. So then, let his blazing lightning be hurled, and with the white wings of the snow and thunders of earthquake let him confound the reeling world. For nothing of this shall bend my will even to tell at whose hands he is fated to be hurled from his sovereignty.” (1.1. 987-996)
In defiance, Prometheus would not tell the secret. Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock, and every day he sent an eagle to peck out the Titan 's liver, which grew back again every night. This agony was drawn out for ages. There were two conditions on which he could be released from the rock: first, that an immortal must suffer death for Prometheus, and, second, that a mortal must slay the eagle and unchain him, and in time the Centaur Chiron did agree to die for him, while Heracles killed the eagle and unbound