Pandora's Box
The king of all Gods, Zeus, seeking revenge against the Titan Prometheus, created the first women, Pandora, to use in his vengeful scheme. Pandora was what every man wanted: she was beautiful, bright and talented. Zeus had created Pandora to give to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, and Epimetheus took her gladly as his wife. Now along with Pandora Zeus gave Epimetheus a box that was tightly locked and warned Epimethius to not dare open it, Epimetheus agreed to never open the box, taking it along with his new wife. Both Epimethius and Pandora were blissfully happy as married couple living in a wonderful world where no one ever got sick or grew old. While Pandora was the perfect woman, she was also a curious women, and when Epimetheus was not looking, she broke the lock on the box, peeking to see what laid inside. As Pandora lifted the lid of the box she heard an awful scream, and out of the box streamed hate, jealousy, cruelty, anger, hunger, poverty, pain, sickness, old age and death, polluting her wonderful world. Following out all the new terrors of the world, was chased out a small light, hope. While Pandora’s Box unleashed suffering of all kinds, it also let out hope, providing all mortals with a chance at happiness still.
Themes:
When looking at Pandora’s box there are many potential themes that can be found in the text. However, it can be concluded that that the overarching theme in Pandora’s box is that curiosity is a trait in humans that can most easily be, and is most often, their downfall. In other words, the theme of Pandora’s box is that “curiosity killed the cat”. References:
Alfrey, Aeron. "Steele Savage - 'Pandora's Box' From 'Stories of the Gods and Heroes' by Sally Benson, 1940." Flickr. Yahoo!, 02 Dec. 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. "Good and Bad Choices in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." 123HelpMe.com. 13 Feb 2013 <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=17388>. "Pandora's Box (myth) - Ancient Greek & Roman Gods." Pandora's Box (myth) - Ancient Greek & Roman Gods. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. |
Where can you find this theme in classic literature?:
|