Greek Mythology Research Paper

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Everyone knows the great epics of Zeus and his powerful lightening bolts, Poseidon with his massive triton and his demi-god son Percy, and Hades with his fiery blue hair, pointy teeth, and his freaky pool of lost souls. However, just these mere stories do not capture the essence of how broad and incredible Greek mythology is. Greek mythology is used to explain the happenings of every day life and deals with how humans were supposed to live their lives as well as explaining the lives and duties of each god (Cartwright). Greek mythology influences our modern society in various ways from something as simple as food to certain things we use every day. A popular activity to do among today’s society is to see and make movies. Recently, movies have…show more content…
Many words in the English language are derived from Greek gods or terms. For example, the word “atlas” is derived from the Titan, Atlas, who led the Titans into battle against Zeus. After he was defeated, he was exiled to specific part of the Underworld where he was forced to carry the sky on his shoulders (Currie). Now we refer to an atlas as book of maps and can be found in various places such as libraries and online atlases. Another example would be the story of the god Narcissus. Narcissus was an extremely talented hunter who was also blessed with cunning beauty. Narcissus, being highly aware of his own beauty, believed he was superior to everyone else because of it. Another god noticed Narcissus’ behavior and felt he needed to be punished due to his lack of kindness. The god made Narcissus see his reflection in a small pool of water and he instantly fell in love with himself. His actions resulted in Narcissus being alone for all eternity. The word “narcissism” is derived from this story and means immensely vain or arrogant (Currie). There are many other words and phrases that we use in our everyday language that originated from the Greek gods. This shows how the Greek religion has traveled from the center of the Eastern hemisphere, all the way across the world to the Western hemisphere. It continues to impact Western society

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