HUM 210-006: World Mythologies
Take-home Final Exam
Due: Thursday, May 11 (in class)
Please type your answers, include your name and page numbers on EVERY page, and indicate clearly which
questions you are answering.
Please note the following instructions carefully:
Answer FIVE questions (short answers) from Part One and ONE essay question from Part Two
PART ONE: Short Answers
25 points
(5 points each)
Answer any FIVE of the following. Each response should be a paragraph in length.
1.In the final chapter of The Penelopiad (“The Chorus Line: We’re Walking Behind You, A Love Song”), we read
the following:
We can see through all your disguises: the paths of day, the paths of darkness, which ever paths you take –
we’re right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory,
light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out,
eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats.
(192)
Who is speaking here, and to whom? Explain the meaning and the significance of these lines in the context
of the rewriting of the story of Odysseus presented in The Penelopiad..
2.The monster in Gardner’s Grendel has an unexpected concern that seems to cause the monster great distress:
“Why can’t I have someone to talk to?” I said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness.
“The Shaper has people to talk to,” I said. I wrung my fingers. “Hrothgar has people to talk to.”
(53)
How would you explain this particular concern articulated by the monster here? What does this indicate about the
monster? What is the importance and significance of the monster’s concern here in relation to the monster’s story as
a whole?
3.As we approach the final climax of The Odyssey, the cowherd, Philoetius, offers the following observations to his
friend, the swineherd:
“Who’s this stranger, Eumaeus, just come to the house?
What roots does the man claim – who are his people?
Where are his blood kin? His father’s fields?
Poor beggar! But what a build – a royal king’s!
Ah, once the gods weave trouble into our lives
they drive us across the earth, they drown us all in pain.
even kings of the realm!
(Book 20, lines 210-216)
Who is the stranger, this “poor beggar”? What is the significance of the cowherd’s comments here?
Final/Topics/1
4.Grendel puzzles over stories he has overheard the Shaper sing in Heorot:
It was a cold-blooded lie that a god had lovingly made the world and set out the sun and moon. As lights
to land-dwellers, that brothers had fought, that one of the races was saved, the other was cursed. Yet he,
the old Shaper, might make it true, by the sweetness of his harp, his cunning trickery. It came to me with
a fierce jolt that I wanted it. As they did too, though vicious animals. Cunning, cracked with theories. I
wanted it, yes! Even if I must be outcast, cursed by the rules of the hideous fable.
(55)
What is the meaning and significance of this particular passage? What has Grendel heard the Shaper sing that grips
his mind and imagination so powerfully, and obsessively? What has Grendel learned about himself from the Shaper,
and how does that influence him, or perhaps even change him? How does this affect his attitude towards the men
who gather to enjoy themselves in Heorot, and how does he now view the Shaper?
5.In The Odyssey, Penelope reveals that she also has a harsh side to her character:
“Make no mistake, you brazen, shameless bitch,
none of your ugly work escapes me either –
you will pay for it with your life, you wil!”
(Book 19, lines 99-101)
Who has provoked such anger in Penelope, and why? What finally happens to this “brazen, shameless bitch” and
does this seem justified? Explain.
6.Grendel offers the following comments about one of Hrothgar’s men:
He lives on, bitter, feebly challenging my midnight raids from time to time (three times this summer), crazy
with shame that he alone is always spared, and furiously jealous of the dead. I laugh when I see him. He
throws himself at me, or he cunningly sneaks up behind, sometimes in disguise – a goat, a dog, a sick old
woman – and I roll on the floor with laughter. So much for heroism. So much for the harvest-virgin. So
much, also, for the alternative visions of blind old poets and dragons.
(90)
Who is Grendel speaking about here? What is the significance of these comments? What is the nature of the
relationship between Grendel and this particular man? What does this strange relationship suggest about the
monster?
7.Penelope of The Penelopiad challenges the manner in which she is presented in The Odyssey:
Hadn’t I been faithful? Hadn’t I waited, and waited, and waited, despite the temptation – almost the compulsion
– to do otherwise? And what did I amount to, once the official version gained ground? An edifying legend. A
stick used to beat other women with. Why wouldn’t they be inconsiderate, as trustworthy as all-suffering as I
had been? That was the line they took, the singers, the yarn-spinners. Don’t follow my example, I want to
scream in your ears – yes, yours! But when I try to scream, I sound like an owl.
(2)
How do you understand Penelope’s attitude and response to the earlier “official version” which presents her as an
“edifying legend”? Why does Penelope beg the women in her audience “Don’t follow my example”? What does
Penelope learn from her experience as the wife of the great hero that she so desperately wants us to know?
8.Grendel visits the Dragon, and an extraordinary conversation results. Explain the following passage, spoken by
the Dragon to Grendel:
“You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and
scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last.
You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death
they shrink from – the blunt facts of their mortality, their abandonment – that’s what you make them recognize,
embrace! You are mankind, or man’s condition: inseparable as the mountain-climber and the mountain… If
man’s the irrelevance that interests you, stick with him! Scare him to glory! It’s all the same in the end, matter
and motion, simple or complex. No difference, finally. Death, transfiguration. Ashes to ashes, and slime to
slime, amen.”
(73)
Final/Topics/2
For extra credit
1.What is the name of the famous mead hall built by Hrothgar? What does this name mean?
PART TWO: Essay Topics
(2 points)
25 points
TOPIC ONE
One scholar of myth suggests the following about the heroes we encounter in the stories we have been reading:
In spite of their extraordinary abilities, no hero is perfect. Yet their human weaknesses are often as instructive
as their heroic qualities. Their imperfections allow ordinary people to identify with them and to like them, for
everyone has similar psychological needs and conflicts.
Discuss this suggestion with reference to any of the texts – and the heroes encountered in these texts – we have read,
watched and discussed in class over the course of the semester. Please remember to include specific examples from
these texts (written or visual) to support your discussion.
TOPIC TWO
In her Introduction to World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics, Donna Rosenberg writes that:
Heroes are children of gods who have an unusual birth, possess extraordinary strength, kill monsters with the
help of special weapons, embark on an arduous journey, descend into the Underworld as part of their tasks,
and have an unusual death.
(xiv)
How well does this excerpt characterize the heroes and their stories that we have encountered in the various texts
(both written and film) that we have explored over the course of the semester? However, not every hero that we
have encountered can claim a divinity for a parent, or experiences a descent into the Underworld as an essential
component of their heroic task or journey. Does this suggest that these particular “heroes” are not really “heroic”
after all? Write an essay in which you explore the heroic qualities of any TWO or THREE heroes we have
discussed this semester in relation to the identifying characteristics of the hero suggested above. Have we met
heroes this semester that do meet the criteria offered here? Remember to include specific examples from texts –
written and film – that we have enjoyed over the course of the semester.
TOPIC THREE
In Gardner’s Grendel, we encounter the rewriting of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf from the intriguing perspective
of the monster. Explore the presentation of the hero from Geatland through the monster’s perceptions in Grendel
and the presentation of this same hero in Zemeckis’ Beowulf. In Grendel, the monster describes the hero in great
detail, revealing extraordinary sensitivity and powers of observation; but as much as we learn about this hero, we
will never learn his name. In Zemeckis’ film version of this same story, the hero is depicted repeatedly bellowing
his name during heroic contests with sea monsters as well as his hand-to-hand combat with Grendel: I am Beowulf.
Compare these two very different presentations of the Geat hero. Is one of these presentations more effective in
conveying the heroic qualities of monster-slayer? How does Grendel present his final encounter with the unnamed
Geat hero that brings about his death? How does this version compare with the very dramatic rendition in
Zemeckis’ Beowulf? Remember to include specific evidence from both texts (written and film) to support your
discussion.
Final/Topics/3
TOPIC FOUR
In many of the texts we have read or films we have watched this semester – Saramago’s Cain, Homer’s The
Odyssey, Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Zemeckis’ Beowulf – we encounter women, both earthly, divine, or perhaps
even demonic, who cause serious problems for the hero (or heroes). For example, Eve convinces Adam to eat the
forbidden fruit with drastic results; Lilith is perceived as a “witch” because of the effect she has on “helpless” men,
including Cain; Circe is considered dangerous and feared because of her sorcery which she uses on men; the sirens
lure sailors to their deaths through their irresistible singing; the maids consort with the suitors which is considered
an act of betrayal to the absent Odysseus. Explore the way in which women – whether mortal or immortal (or
maybe somewhere in-between) – function to destabilize or destroy the heroes, or at the very least, make trouble for
the male characters in these texts. Please refer to at least TWO texts that we have read or watched over the course
of the semester, and remember to include specific examples from these texts (written or film) to support your
discussion.
Final/Topics/4
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