E4: Epic Paper

The Big Ideas:

• The Book of Job asks why bad things happen; the story shows us why isn't as important as how we handle bad things when they inevitably happen.
• The Book of Job asks what it means to be good; a good person does the best he can with what he has, helps others, is loyal, and is true to his beliefs.
•  The Illiad shows us that manipulative people win out in the end and good people die along the way through the war for Troy.
• The Odyssey asks us to compare the anti-hero, Odysseus, to the hero, Telemachus. The real comparison for either man should be to Penelope who did more with less as a woman in a fiercely male-dominated world.
• Beowulf looks at what it means to be good in a society that is focused on war rather than religion. It also looks at how a pagan culture assimilates a peace-oriented, monotheistic religion.

Essay Options: Remember, these are meant to be a starting point.

• Analyze one of the main characters in relation to the story and in relation to his or her culture.
• Compare two of the characters from different stories and cultures.
• Look at the bigger questions one of the stories adresses and how it impacts the plot, the characters, and the ending; what does that question imply about the culture the epic comes from?
• Pick your own topic that relates to one of the four stories.

Sample Q&D Outline:

• Claim: Job and Cassandra of Troy both represent how their cutlures viewed faith. The Jews thought it was important to be true to their beliefs, but they didn't always know what that meant; the Greeks weren't usually very devout to their gods which is shown in the way Cassandra is cursed for reminding her "god" of his own rules.
• Brief discussion of Job, it's larger questions, and how Jews practice their faith now.
• Brief discussion of Greek mythology, whether or not faith plays a part in most of their lives, and what Cassandra's curse was really about.
• Examples of how Job and Cassandra were similar—fully explained
• Examples of how Job and Cassandra were different—fully explained

Bibliographic Examples (reverse indent each entry):
The Books of the Bible: New International Version. [Colorado Springs, Colo.] : Biblica, Inc: distributed by Zondervan, 2011. Print.

Butler, Samuel, trans. The Iliad and The Odyssey. e-book. Buki Editions, 2009.

Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000.

Thouvenel, M. 2014 Frame of Reference. Pendleton High School. February 2014. Lecture Notes.

Thouvenel, M . "E4: Beowulf Notes." English with Thouvenel. 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://phs242.blogspot.com/2014/03/beowulfnotes.html>.