My Greek Mythology Essay

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Is anyone interested in looking at my essay? It's supposed to be 1500--2000 words, and I've already got close to 1000. I'm still working out some of my ideas, so it's rough in a lot of parts. Here it is:

Introduction Paragraph: People often wondered why living beings eventually die, and many humans actively worked to discover immortality, perhaps feeling jealous of the gods or other immortal, spiritual beings. In ancient times, immortality was only for the mighty gods, ageless and unchanging. The Greek gods in particular illustrated how unchanging beings became static and could not grow as people or learn from their experiences. They remained largely the same throughout ancient Greek history: arrogant, selfish, even narcissistic and petty. Therefore, death allowed the soul to grow and learn from past experiences before moving onwards to the next life and future experiences. Throughout life, humans travel on the Hero’s Journey towards their ultimate goal: unconditional love. By embarking on a journey into death, every hero had to face his or her Shadow Archetype, or they would become consumed by their own darkness and it would be extremely difficult for them to return to the world of the living.
Thesis: Subsequently, Greek Mythology is important because it teaches intricate and important wisdom about the Hero’s Journey and the Soul’s Journey After Death.

First Body Paragraph: When Orpheus descended into Hades, the only thing he took with him was his lyre, which he played so beautifully and so sorrowfully that he was allowed entry. Some paintings even depict Orpheus as wearing no clothing, as descending into death is a metaphysical experience, so Orpheus literally took only himself and the metaphorical music of his soul.
As Joseph Campbell said, "We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

Second Body Paragraph: Hades and Thanatos are both deities of death, but are fundamentally different. Hades is a gloomy, melancholy god who wanders his halls in silence. Thanatos is a benevolent and gentle god who could be described as similar to a guardian angel who peacefully guides the soul onwards. Hades had a helmet of invisibility, sneaking around in darkness, whereas Thanatos usually remained visible and flew on giant wings. Hades was born from Cronos, the god of time, and Rhea, daughter of Gaia and Oceanus and responsible for the order in Cronos’ kingdom. Thanatos was born from Nyx, goddess of night from before both the Titans and Olympians, and her brother Erebus, god of deep darkness and shadows. Hades’ siblings were the Olympians, whereas Thanatos’ siblings were Aether, Hemera, Hypnos or Somnus [sleep], Apate [deception], the Morai [the Fates], Geras [old age], Nemesis [retribution], Eris [strife], and Charon [the ferryman of the dead]. Interestingly, Thanatos was also called a daemonic spirit, and that word referred to positive and benign nature spirits in ancient Greece. Hades forces the dead to make their journey alone and unaided but Thanatos guides them to wherever they need to go.

Third Body Paragraph: Souls who journeyed through the Underworld had to cross many dangerous and fascinating rivers. The ferryman Charon ferried the dead across the river Acheron, similar to how Ra, the Egyptian sun god, ferried his boat down to the Egyptian Underworld every night. The river Lethe was near the river Acheron, but the two rivers were completely different. Acheron was the river of suffering, whereas Lethe was the river of which dead souls drank from to forget their past lives and then lept over into their next life. Death is necessary for humanity, as explained by Socrates: "If I [Socrates] am to live longer, perhaps I must live out my old age, seeing and hearing less, understanding worse, coming to learn with more difficulty and to be more forgetful, and growing worse than those to whom I was once superior. Indeed, life would be unlivable, even if I did not notice the change. And if I see the change, how could life not be even more wretched and unpleasant?”

Fourth Body Paragraph: Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and died a metaphorical death, which ties into her role as a goddess of green life, springtime, flowers, and sunshine. She becomes cold, withdrawn, and ‘dead’ every winter, yet every spring she rises up to the surface world again, up into life and the warmth of the sun. Without her descent and ascension every year, neither spring nor winter would happen. She descended down into darkness and coldness and ascended up into light and warmth, therefore signifying that her shadow is confronted and overcome every year so she can obtain Apotheosis as a goddess again in the Spring when she is literally in her element. Socrates compared Persephone’s descent and ascent to and from the underworld to reincarnation, and said that she retained and built on her knowledge from previous lives.
SOCRATES: Those who tell it are priests and priestesses of the sort who make it their business to be able to account for the functions which they perform...see whether you think they are speaking the truth. They say that the soul of man is immortal. At one time it comes to an end-that which is called death-and at another is born again, but is never finally exterminated. On these grounds a man must live all his days as righteously as possible.

Conclusion Paragraph: [I haven't worked on it yet...]

What do you guys think?

Well done!

Really? Thank you! It isn't even done yet and you think it's good! Yay!

Here's the revised edition [I only have to work on the first and third paragraphs now].

People often wondered why living beings eventually die, and many humans in the past actively worked to discover immortality, perhaps feeling jealous of the gods or other immortal, spiritual beings. In ancient Greece, immortality was only for the mighty gods, ageless and unchanging. The Greek gods in particular illustrated how unchanging beings became static and could not grow as people or learn from their experiences. They remained largely the same throughout ancient Greek history: arrogant, selfish, even narcissistic and petty. Therefore, death allowed the soul to grow and learn from past experiences before moving onwards to the next life and future experiences. Throughout life, humans travel on the Hero’s Journey towards their ultimate goal: unconditional love. By embarking on a journey into death, every hero had to face his or her Shadow Archetype, or they would become consumed by their own darkness and it would be extremely difficult for them to return to the world of the living and finish their journey.
Subsequently, Greek Mythology is important because it teaches intricate and important wisdom about the Hero’s Journey and the Soul’s Journey After Death.
When Orpheus descended into Hades, the only thing he took with him was his lyre, which he played so beautifully and so sorrowfully that he was allowed entry. Some paintings even depict Orpheus as wearing no clothing, as descending into death is a metaphysical experience, so Orpheus literally took only himself and the metaphorical music of his soul. As Joseph Campbell said, "We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
However, Orpheus traveled into Hades to win back the soul of his lover, Eurydice, but when confronted with his Shadow [his fear that Eurydice was not behind him], he failed and was defeated by his Shadow in the end, as he spent the rest of his life lonely and wild with grief in a secluded forest and basically became a lamenting hermit.
Hades and Thanatos were both deities of death, but were fundamentally different. Hades was a gloomy, melancholy god who wandered his halls in silence. Thanatos was a benevolent and gentle god who could be described as similar to a guardian angel who peacefully guided the soul onwards. Hades had a helmet of invisibility, sneaking around in darkness, whereas Thanatos usually remained visible and flew on giant wings. Hades was born from Cronos, the god of time, and Rhea, daughter of Gaia and Oceanus and responsible for the order in Cronos’ kingdom. Thanatos was born from Nyx, goddess of night from before both the Titans and Olympians, and her brother Erebus, god of deep darkness and shadows. Hades’ siblings were the Olympians, whereas Thanatos’ siblings were Aether, Hemera, Hypnos or Somnus [sleep], Apate [deception], the Morai [the Fates], Geras [old age], Nemesis [retribution], Eris [strife], and Charon [the ferryman of the dead]. Hades forced the dead to make their journey alone and unaided but Thanatos guided them to wherever they needed to go. Thanatos and his brother Hypnos, who also had great feathery wings and a magic wand, often worked in tandem to guide the souls into death. In some myths, both Thanatos and Hypnos had power over the gods themselves. Interestingly, Thanatos was also called a daemonic spirit, and that word referred to positive and benign nature spirits in ancient Greece. Hades and Thanatos had an interesting duality of positive and negative aspects of the Underworld and death in general, and affected the Soul’s Journey and Hero’s Journey in definitively parallel ways.
Souls who journeyed through the Underworld had to cross many dangerous and fascinating rivers. The ferryman Charon ferried the dead across the river Acheron, similar to how Ra, the Egyptian sun god, ferried his boat down to the Egyptian Underworld every night. The river Lethe was near the river Acheron, but the two rivers were completely different. Acheron was the river of suffering, whereas Lethe was the river of which dead souls drank from to forget their past lives and then leapt over into their next life. According to some myths, Lethe flowed past the Elysian Fields, which is where the virtuous heroes travel to for their final fate. Death is necessary for humanity, as explained by Socrates: "If I [Socrates] am to live longer, perhaps I must live out my old age, seeing and hearing less, understanding worse, coming to learn with more difficulty and to be more forgetful, and growing worse than those to whom I was once superior. Indeed, life would be unlivable, even if I did not notice the change. And if I see the change, how could life not be even more wretched and unpleasant?”

Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and died a metaphorical death, which ties into her role as a goddess of green life, springtime, flowers, and sunshine. She became cold, withdrawn, and ‘dead’ every winter, yet every spring she rose up to the surface world again, up into life and the warmth of the sun. Without her descent and ascension every year, neither spring nor winter would happen. She descended down into darkness and coldness and ascended up into light and warmth, therefore signifying that her shadow is confronted and overcome every year so she can obtain Apotheosis as a goddess again in the Spring when she is literally in her element. Socrates compared Persephone’s descent and ascent to and from the underworld to reincarnation, and said that she retained and built on her knowledge from previous lives. He also commented on immortal souls: Those who tell it are priests and priestesses of the sort who make it their business to be able to account for the functions which they perform...see whether you think they are speaking the truth. They say that the soul of man is immortal. At one time it comes to an end--that which is called death--and at another is born again, but is never finally exterminated. On these grounds a man must live all his days as righteously as possible.’ As the cycle of the Hero’s Journey continued, the soul grew and changed by descending and ascending in every cycle.
Significant and complex wisdom about The Soul’s Journey After Death and The Hero’s Journey can be found in Greek Mythology. Both Orpheus and Persephone embarked on difficult journeys into the Underworld. Whereas Orpheus fails in his quest and wandered in the wilderness for the rest of his life, Persephone succeeded and returned to the world of the living. Hades and Thanatos maintained order in the Underworld in different ways, and each river of the afterlife was equally important on the soul’s journey. Every experience of the Hero’s Journey became a part of the soul, which continuously lead to reincarnation and different lives during the search for unconditional love. As the old saying goes, ‘It isn’t that myths aren’t real because they’re myths, they are myths because they’re real.’