Myth Journal Entry

In Invisible Cities, Calvino portrays transformation through an overarching theme of contrast. He transforms the readers perceptions of a city using descriptions which are sometimes shocking and always provoke some emotion. Metamorphoses, on the other hand, uses a more literal mean of transformation throughout its myths. A perfect example is the myth of Apollo, where he transforms from being without love to being immersed in love in the matter of a few pages. Other Ovid myths mirror this transformation in the main character from one extreme to the other. A definite similarity in the texts deals directly with their different uses of transformation. Although different, the effect that Ovid and Calvino is very similar. They wanted to draw out intense emotion within the reader using the transformation of their cities or main characters.
In Ovid’s work the relationship between God’s and humans is comical. The god’s sit upon their thrones in Olympus, and every now and again they may come to the earth and pose as a mortal. They are much higher than mortals in their status, as well as their lifespan, but they are not much higher in their emotional maturity. The god’s have a very similar intellect as humans, and are therefore subject to the same emotional downfall’s as humans.
While reading this creation myth I drew connections with the book of genesis, considering this is one of the most famous creation myth’s that there are. They both speak of a void that once existed in place of humanity, until of course God decided to create earth and humans. They both were also very similar in that they had a theme of corruption, which is remedied by a giant flood of course. Ovid’s tone in his Metamorphoses follows the tone of the story. For instance, his tone is very somber in the myth where the echo loses her body and only her voice remains. It generally tends to follow the mood of the myth.
The Demeter and Persephone myths were very different in their treatment of their main characters. In the Demeter myth, the characters are all very realistic. When Demeter is pulled into the underworld, you can feel her fear. You can truly feel the emotions of the different characters, such as her heartbroken mother, or the famished and dying mortals. The Persephone myth has very fictional characters, such as the all too innocent Persephone. King Pluto seemed very perverted in his actions, considering Persephone sounded like she was 11 years old. Her mother was the most realistic character of the myth, and even she wasn’t very believable when she showed angst at losing her daughter. This can be seen best at the end of the myth when Persephone says that she ate the 6 pomegranate seeds, and her mother reacts by saying something to the point of, “Aw shucks!” It was much less believable than the Demeter myth.