ipl-logo

Ovid's Metamorphoses Literary Analysis

1545 Words7 Pages

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there are many different stories we are introduced too. Since the title means, transformation, it would only fit to grasp a better understanding of how we are transformed though the epic poem. With that being said, there are also many different stories told inside other stories. I wanted to look more in depth in book three, where we hear the story of Echo and Narcissus. I chose to look more in its entirety about this story because it has numerous themes that are portrayed throughout Metamorphoses. For example, love is an ongoing theme for the overall plot, as well as inside this shorter story. We are given different examples of love such as amo, cupido, libido, and desidare. The first theme that arises from this story, …show more content…

At the end of the story, Narcissus died because he fell in love with his reflection, causing great sadness for all those who loved him. “While in the world above, his naiad sisters mourned him, and dryads wept with them, preparing the funeral pile, the bier, the brandished torches” (73). As we have learned throughout the who semester, mourning someone is a detailed processes and providing this quote at the end shows how everyone was affected by his death. Echo also felt a feeling of sadness right before he died. “The strength and hardihood and comeliness, fading away, and even the very body Echo had loved. She was sorry for him now, though angry still, remember; you could hear her answer “Alas!” in pity when Narcissus cried out “Alas!” (72). Echo’s sadness isn’t for herself, but more for Narcissus because she understands his outcome for life. It was the closure she needed even if he didn’t want her like she wanted him, she was still sorry for what was about the happen to him. Another ongoing theme we encounter in this story is death. Towards the end, Narcissus kind of accepts his fate by welcoming death. “If I could only escape from my own body! If I could only – how curious a pray from any lover – be parted from my love! And now my sorrow is taking all my strength away; I know I have not long to live, I shall die early, and death is not so terrible, since it takes my trouble away from me; I am sorry only the boy I love must die, we die together” (72). All through all of Metamorphoses, death is something that many didn’t fear, but accepted as their fate. Narcissus understands that once he dies, he doesn’t have to carry this pain and sorrows with him anymore, making it almost worth it to not be

Show More
Related
157 Words | 1 Pages

"Behind every beautiful thing there is some type of pain", or in this case suffering and death. In the Greek myths of Narcissus, Persephone and Demeter, and ________, the common theme is that the quest for beauty eventually results in much suffering. This ultimately reveals that the Greek gods, created to be the most beautiful things on Earth, associated beauty, love and happiness, with suffering and death. In the myth of Narcissus, written in the book Mythology by Edith Hamilton, Narcissus was a youthful, beautiful man of Boeotia.

Read More
981 Words | 4 Pages

Among other essays I have read in this book, the essay El Camino Doloroso written by David Searcy seems to have won my heart over the other ones. This story is short; in fact, it only has three pages, but the message Mr. Searcy conveys surpass these simple pages. To be honest, I have to read this essay three times to understand what is going on with the character and what is happening in this story. At last, I come up with this: In this essay, David Searcy wants those who believe dreams are flaws and useless to think that dreams and love are those that motivateki people to live.

Read More
1034 Words | 5 Pages

Some are never the same and are in a depression for the rest of their days. Many don't understand how to cope with death and are terrified of what may happen. Many people greet death in different ways. In the story “The Crucible”, the characters react in different ways.

Read More
845 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone is fated to die, both you and me as well. Some are fated to die in love and/or hate, just like the story or Romeo and Juliet. Fate was the single cause of their deaths and was also the resolve of the feud transpiring through out the story. The events and their timing that occurred were all executed and timed by Fate; every event is connected together, from Rosaline rejecting Romeo to Tybalt being killed by Romeo, to Juliet killing herself after seeing Romeo’s dead body. Both Romeo and Juliet were born into feuding families and were fated to suffer and resolve the fated consequences for the ancestors feud.”

Read More
614 Words | 3 Pages

With the realization of his demise, Oedipus tries to protect himself from punishment and shame by gouging out his own eyes and exiling himself out to die in the place destiny prevented him from dying originally. After many years of luxurious living, Oedipus’s predestined fate tears his life apart and returns him to the place he should have died as an infant, the mountain. Through the use of, departure, initiation, and return, Sophocles displays the journey of Oedipus. Not only is Oedipus the King evidence of the use of the hero’s journey throughout many famous plays, movies, and books across all cultures and time periods, but it also seen as a perfect tragedy, in which the audience experiences both pity and fear for the main

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

ultimately death" (Shakespeare 1.4.106-111) It is stated that death is inevitable, making the reader analyze how the two are so naive about their feelings. The unloving relationship between Juliet and her mother led to rebellious teenage years. Since she felt rejected as a child, she seeked approval and attention through Romeo. Her desperation lead to doing things she never would have if she had attention from her mother. She grew up feeling neglected emotionally, it ultimately pushes her to make poor decisions.

Read More
747 Words | 3 Pages

Transforming and Romanticizing a Storyline The Metamorphosis, a novella written by Franz Kafka, attracted the attention of many of its readers due to the writing framework and shocking concepts. The story depicts a man named Gregor Samsa who has befallen the fate of a cockroach- literally. After being transformed into a large bug, Gregor goes through the struggles of misunderstanding, neglect, and loss of his family relationships.

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

OVID’s Metamorphoses In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, men are shown as the dominant force and some women are shown to be conniving during Ovid’s time. This has led to different forms of abuse against women and trickery against men in the book. Some of the forms of abuse and trickery are still common to our own time.

Read More
798 Words | 4 Pages

He is stubborn in resisting the truth but he still seeks for it and that is his final undoing. Wanting to know the truth is not necessarily a bad thing but it is often the cause for bad things to happen. Oedipus is a key example of this when he finally realizes that he was the one who killed his father when he is faced with his dead wife and mother. He reacts harshly to this, stabbing out his eyes and banishing himself all over again. There is no denying that Oedipus caused a lot of his pain himself with no one else to blame.

Read More
753 Words | 4 Pages

Franz Kafka is a German novelist who wrote “The Metamorphosis.” In the story, he uses a third person point of view narrative. The novel uses absurdum, which exaggerates and dramatize the absurdity of modern life. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, struggles with an external factor of transforming into an insect like creature. The transformation was not under his control and now struggles with a new identity.

Read More
1857 Words | 8 Pages

Franz Kafka, heavily influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, devises the character Gregor Samsa in order to portray a detailed experience of an individual’s metamorphosis. Kafka’s narration style differs greatly from Ovid’s, in that, the narration begins with a first person perspective and changes to a third person narration, which remains consistent to the end of the novel. Unlike the stories within the Metamorphoses, there is a clear contrast in the portrayal of Gregor’s transformation. Ovid and Kafka’s depiction of a metamorphosis incorporates the concept of identity in the individual’s transition, however Kafka emphasizes the family dynamic and the hostility Gregor feels. Gregor’s family’s inability to look past Gregor’s exterior appearance

Read More
694 Words | 3 Pages

Finally, “…he was a beautiful butterfly.” The plot was appealing in that it was constantly progressing. • The book develops a worthwhile theme both implicitly and explicitly. The explicit theme of this book is the process of metamorphosis.

Read More
1146 Words | 5 Pages

Romeo, receiving an insufficient amount of and therefore wrong details about Juliet’s so-called death, killed himself, finding no reason to continue living in his unhappy state, and he exhibited this mindset with the following quotation: “How oft when men are at the point of death? Have they been merry,

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

Brilliantly conceived and written, Oedipus Rex is a drama of self-discovery. Achieved by amazing compression and force by limiting the dramatic action to the day on which Oedipus learns the truth of his birth and his destiny is quite the thriller. The fact that the audience knows the dark secret that Oedipus unwittingly slew his true father and married his mother does nothing to destroy the suspense. Oedipus’s search for the truth has all the tautness of a detective tale, and yet because audiences already know the truth they are aware of all the ironies in which Oedipus is enmeshed. That knowledge enables them to fear the final revelation at the same time that they pity the man whose past is gradually and relentlessly uncovered to him.

Read More
1152 Words | 5 Pages

It was not uncommon in Ancient Greek and Roman myths for gods to transform humans into animals or objects, or to alter parts of their mortal bodies in some way shape or form. It’s easy to think that end result of these transfigurations was always hurtful or that they were only used as a type of punishment, because who would want to be turned into a flower? However, Ovid demonstrates that these transformations did not always have the detrimental outcome you think they would; he tells stories where transformation can be both a beneficial and a harmful incident. In Metamorphoses, Ovid relates myths in which transformation is used to both take away the identity of an individual and to restore it in order to portray transformation in both a positive and negative light.

Read More

More about Ovid's Metamorphoses Literary Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document