Theory and Practice of Myth

Since we spent Friday connected various mythologies and discussing how many myths are based around a similar set of circumstances, we figured we would apply that type of thinking to a movie we watched this weed (because a certain uncultured swine had not seen it). That movie is Back to The Future. The movie focuses heavily on what is essentially an Oedipus complex, with the major difference being that Marty knows that the hottie is his mom. He does recognize that the past version of his mom is hot, as at one point he literally has to stop himself from saying so after he has been hit by his grandfather’s car. This is also a bit of a variation because in the movie, it is the mother that pursues the son. While Jocasta is complicit in the Oedipus story, it is Oedipus’ actions and ambitions that lead to their copulation.

In class we also mentioned how you cannot cheat death, but we can’t remember anything else about that. So basically, Sisyphus tries to cheat death and he is punished for all eternity, and Orpheus cheats death by taking back Euridice but he is punished cause he doesn’t follow the rules. This reminded me of the Deathly Hallows in Harry Potter because they tried to cheat death in the following ways: one man gets a resurrection stone brings people back from the dead, another gets a wand that is more powerful than death himself, and the third gets a cloak of invisibility so that death cannot find him when he is ready to die.
Tiresias cheats death because he lives 7 lives, 7 generations, and when he’s in the underworld he isn’t as dead as the other people – if that makes sense. A symbol that can be attributed to Tiresias are the snakes, the snakes are also attributed to Voldemorte because he is evil and kinda dead and whatnot. The snakes generally symbolize evilness, they screw up Tiresias’ gender and they screw things up in HP. Snakes, man. (note from Alex, we said snakes are kinda like representations of women….so what does that say?)