This document discusses myths and their purpose and nature. It explains that myths were not meant as falsehoods, but rather as ways for ancient cultures to explain phenomena they did not understand. Myths are oral traditions that can have multiple versions and express the values and beliefs of the culture. The document also summarizes some common themes in myths such as creation stories, heroes/tricksters, and the afterlife. It provides examples of myths like the creation of the Greek gods and titans to illustrate its points about the nature and analysis of myths.

1. Introductions to Myths

2. 2 Misconceptions about myths:
1. Myth = falsehood. Example: It’s a myth that if you
masturbate too much you’ll go blind.
2. Myths are stories that only very primitive cultures
used for entertainment before TV and radio.
• In actuality, the word myth comes from the Greek
mythos which means word, story, saying. Myths were
not created as falsehoods but instead as ways to
explain truths. Myths are humans’ attempts (both
centuries ago and today) to explain phenomena that
could not easily be explained otherwise

3.  Told
by word of mouth (oral tradition)
 Exist in multiple versions
 Vary by details
 Are/were believed by the originating
cultures
 Are explanations of things that cannot
be easily explained otherwise
 Express the values/belief/fears of the
originating culture

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Folklorists study the motifs in myths and the way the motifs
are woven together as building blocks for all myths.
Vladimir Propp: whom we shall be studying later found
31 elements common to all folklore.
Alan Dundes: contemporary Berkeley professor.
Compiled a study of the Cinderella stories across
culture, which we will see a part of
Max Muller: all myths produced by Indo-Europeans
could be understood as originating from symbolic stories, such
as Persephone, representing seasons.

5. Claude Levi-Strauss: Believes that myths
explain dualism, conflict between opposing
forces..
J.G. Frazer: published a 12 volume
mythological study, The Golden Bough, which
brought together all the mythical kingships of
the world to explain that natural order is for
the old king to make way for the new -- or the
social order within tribes is reflected in its
origin myths.

7. Sigmund Freud: posited the Oedipus hero, who
unknowingly kills his father and marries his
mother, reflects the inner desire of the son to kill
the father so that he can have the mother all to
himself.
Carl Jung: believed the principal characters in
myths embody archetypes, such as the wise old
man, or the nurturing mother
Bruno Bettelheim: believed that myths serve as
models for human behavior and give meaning and
value to life.

8. Joseph Campbell: is the most well- known. He reads
myths symbolically, sees them as attempts to show
latent sides of personalities. But he believes that myths
work only when they are conscious.
• Most mythologists believe that myths are a collection
of symbols. Symbolism is an important part of the way
all scholars view myths.
Signs: finite, practical, unambiguous
representations, such as the sign for stop
Symbols have more complex, ambiguous meanings.
Graphic lines of shapes, words, or ritual actions
can be symbols.

10. Creation of the world and the people in it
• Structure of the universe
Elements/ Heavenly Bodies
• Causes of life and death
• Supernatural beings
Destroyers, preservers, divine specialties
• Cosmic disasters
flood, drought, famine
• Heroes and Tricksters
agents of change
• Animals and Plants
Creation and Kinship
• Body and Soul
Spirit and the Afterlife
• Marriage and Kinship
• Social Mores and Taboos

12. Creation of Titan and the Gods
Emptiness = Chaos > Gaea (Mother Earth) Tartarus (Underworld
ruler) Eros (Love)

13. and their first children were
the 3 Hundred- handed giants
and the Cyclops.
Uranus hurled
them into
the earth.

14. Gaea was angry and wanted her kids. So after she
had the 13 Titans
Helios (god of the sun)
Selene (goddess of the moon)
Oceanus (god of the river)
Themis (goddess of prophecy at Delphi)
Cronus
Rhea (parents of the Greek gods)
Atlas
Prometheus (created man out of clay and
water)
Epimetheus

15. Gaea got Cronus to emasculate
Uranus, who could not die
but suffered great agony.
From his severed pieces
in the ocean and
a white foam
(significance?)
… Aphrodite is born.

16. And Then
 Cronus
kept the giants imprisoned in
Tartarus and had more children. Fearing
the prophecy that his child would
disempower him, he swallowed them when
they were infants.
 Rhea was desperate so she asked
Gaea, who told her to hide Zeus, her next
child in a tree so he wouldn’t be on
earth, in water or in the air, and had him
swallow a stone, which he mistook for the
baby.

17.  Zeus
grew up, gave Cronus a drink and he
vomited up all of his fully grown children.
After they fought for ten years with the
Titans, Gaea told Zeus about the Giants
and Cyclops and he freed them. They
gave the presents and the Greek gods
used them, won and imprisoned the
titans, with the Hundred-handed giants to
guard them.

18.  From
a psychoanalytic standpoint:
 Sons unconsciously harbor a desire to kill
fathers and sleep with mothers.
….what else?

19.  It
is healthy to provide the opportunity for
the old leaders to make way for the new. If
they will not, it is natural for the son to free
the society from the tyrannical or useless
father.
 What else? (Remember, we are
brainstorming here. Come up with an idea
about how this myth shows how humans
interact as groups or individually.

20. 
Uranus’s cut off genitals became sea foam from
which was born Aphrodite. Symbol of insemination
of the sea?
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Thunder: divine right, chastisement, and
judgment. Sounded word of god. Impregnation.
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Lightning: Linked with
fire, water, wrath, weapons, male
power, phallus, creation and destruction.
Helmet of Invisibility: Invisible
power, thought, ability to escape dangerous
situations.

21.  In
groups, discuss Demeter and Persephone:
 Find
the themes that apply (from the pink
handout)
 And then discuss psychological and
sociological perspectives as well as symbols.
Each group should have several examples.
You may use your phones or computers to
look up symbolism.

22.  Go
to Website under myths heading at
the top, click on The Odyssey, and print
up). Then read the following pages:
 Printout: pp. 45 – 47 The Birth of
Paris, The Judgement of Paris, The
Marriage of Helen, The Preparation for
War
 pp. 75 – 85 The Odyssey