Weekly Post

Hi. This week I again focused on reading myths and writing responses. I used the same format as I used last week. I have found having a clear format has helped me to focus in on what I want to write about and kept me on track. Most of the common myths that focus on the major gods and heroes I had already read so I decided I wanted to focus on the less common myths. Also, the major myths have understandable underlying themes while the less common myths tend to be harder to decipher. The less common myths have morals that are not usually discussed in mythology such as boasting or theft.

 I focused on the myths of Helios and Arachne. The myth about Helios focused on his son Phaethon and how he stole Helios' sun chariot and created the desert and ice caps. I chose to focus on the lesson of trust, Helios trusted his son to obey his orders and he did not. I was surprised that both versions of the myth that I read did not so much as mention the fact that Phaethon stole, the focused solely on his bad driving. Of course he is going to be bad at driving the sun, it is the first time he ever drove it he was bound to make a few mistakes, not to mention it is the sun it can not be easy to maneuver. I also read the myth of Arachne which focused on boasting. Arachne boasted her cloth work was better than the gods and Athena took issue with that and turned Arachne into a spider. I focused my response on the moral of how boasting is wrong. I was surprised at the overreaction from Athena and the fact she chose to destroy Arachne's life. Why did Athena have to force Arachne to forever be sewing knowing it would never be good enough, why didn't she just take away Arachne's ability to sew. Overall I liked reading the less common myths mainly because I had not read them yet so they were a change of pace from the crazed lovers I wrote and read about last week. I think I am going to continue to work with my format as it seems to be working well.