11/17/14

In class, Dr. Quillin discussed the historical context within which The Odyssey was written. Using your notes on this lecture, discuss how you think why it was necessary to develop an oral tradition during the Greek Dark Ages and what you think happens to that oral tradition once it is written down.

During the Greek Dark Age, I think it was necessary to develop an oral tradition because at that point the tradition of writing had halted, and verbal communication would be their only way to preserve their stories. Without the singers, they wouldn't have a way to tell their stories, but they also wouldn't have a way to preserve them. Once the oral tradition is written down, there would be less of a need for singers or word of mouth in general to tell stories, because everyone, or most people, would be able to have access to the storers, versus a group of people having to verbally tell it. The written down stories would also be better preserved because there would be less variations of the same story, since it wasn't based solely on word of mouth.

Halloween 2014

My Halloween was not very exciting. I stayed home, and a few of my cousins came over to my house, as they do every Friday. Every Friday, my mom's side of the family comes over and we all eat Burger King and hang out with each other. After most of my family left, a few of my cousins such around and we taught my two year old cousin, Hannah, how to tell people to "shut up". We mainly just laid around my house on our phones, talking and laughing all night.

Maus from The Conflict Theorist's Perspective

The reason that Vladek's story played out the way it did is because he was Jewish, and Jews were the underdogs in society. Non-jews had the upper hand and were able to not only avoid persecution, but also inflicted persecution upon Jews purely based on their social hierarchy.