Topic A: Consider the female characters of our course texts. How do our texts characterize or portray these women? Do these women occupy positions of power? Are they based on any stereotypes? What lessons should a twenty-first century reader take from the respective texts' presentation of these women? Choose two female characters from the texts we've read. Some of the female characters you may choose to discuss include Aruru (Gilgamesh), Ninsun (Gilgamesh), Shiduri (Gilgamesh), Andromache (The Iliad), Athena (The Iliad) Briseis (The Iliad) and Helen (The Iliad). You may also look ahead to Genesis and consider Eve, Sarah or Rebekah. Try to choose two characters who present a significant comparison or contrast.
For each of the characters you choose, briefly summarize her role in her given text and then analyze the character's significance to the plot or message of the text, and, last, discuss what her portrayal means to a twenty-first century reader. Please make sure that the two characters you choose to discuss are from different texts.
Topic B: In the Bhagavad-Gita, the warrior Arjuna is reluctant to fight a battle because he does not want to kill his kinsmen, who are his opponents. However, Krishna, who is an avatar of the deity Vishnu, dispels his doubts and convinces him to do his duty and fight, teaching him about the nature of the self, sacred duty, action and discipline. In The Iliad, the warrior Achilles is also reluctant to fight for much of the text. What is more, the theme of the text is Achilles's rage: "Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage, / Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks / Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls / Of heroes into Hades' dark, / And left their bodies to rot as feasts / For dogs and birds as Zeus' will was done" (1). Achilles does not return to battle until he does so to avenge the death of his fallen friend, Patroclus.
What might Krishna from the Bhagavad-Gita have to teach Achilles? For instance, of the self, Krishna tells Arjuna, "Our bodies are known to end, / but the embodied self is enduring, / indestructible, and immeasurable" (2:18).1 Later, while characterizing the person of discipline, Krishna says, "He is set apart by his disinterest / toward comrades, allies, enemies, / neutrals, nonpartisans, foes, friends, / good and evil men" (6:9). Would Achilles benefit from these and other teachings of Krishna? If so, how? If not, why not?
Make sure to juxtapose specific passages of the Bhagavad-Gita and specific passages of The Iliad in your discussion!
Topic C: In The Trials of Socrates, Plato's character Socrates discusses various subjects, including right action and the self. For instance, in The Apology, Socrates says to an imaginary interlocutor, "You're not thinking straight, sir, if you think that a man who's any use at all should give any opposing weight to the risk of living or dying, instead of looking to this alone whenever he does anything: whether his actions are just or unjust, the deeds of a good or bad man" (43). In Crito. He insists that "one should never do injustice" (70). In Phaedo, he discusses the immortality of the metaphysical self or soul.
How do the ideas of Socrates in Plato's dialogues compare with the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita? In other words, do Socrates and Krishna have similar views on the nature of duty and the self, among other subjects? Or are the teachings of the two inherently different despite some superficial similarity?
As with the previous prompt, make sure to juxtapose specific passages from the two texts during your discussion.