At the beginning of the semester, we discussed the crucial difference between a course in History or Anthropology and a course in Humanities : Humanities not only looks at a culture’s experiences (or struggles, to be consistent with the name of our course) but at the human reaction to these experiences . That always involves artistic expression, particularly writing. We have read numerous examples of storytelling from ancient times to modern – Gilgamesh; The Iliad; Beowulf; The Tempest; “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”; “The Wife of His Youth”; “The Swimmer”; “Hairball”; and “Age of Lead.” Choose one of these and write a standard five-paragraph essay discussing how it reflects issues that the culture it comes from had to deal with and shows attempts to explain/cope with that experience. .