Final Presentations Day 1

Christine: Disney, Grimm, and the myth behind it all.
Christine compared myth to a tree, with fairy tales being a vine that grows on said tree. She also stated that no culture has it's own stories. They are combinations of what they brought with them, and the stories that were there before.

I was next (darn my last name): Mythology in Star Trek.
I covered the season 2 episode from the original series called "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Now I do understand why I always wanted to misspell it as "Who Mourns for Adonis?", which Dr. Sexson brought up at the end of my presentation. I've already put my paper up here, basically I just go over the episodes that have mythological references in the original series and The Next Generation.

Megan: Women in The Magus.
Megan talked about how the women in The Magus are deceitful, and compared Allison to Helen in that she was absent throughout most of the book but kept haunting Nicholas. The other thing I have written down for this is that women need to show men that they are powerful.

Courtney: Feminine rolls in initiation.
Women force men to look at their inner demons through betrayal. Betrayal is woman's heroic action.

Juniper: Persephone and Hades in The Magus. Persephone is Lily, and Hades is Joe. This is indicated by the Eliza Pound passage. Lily's mother is already considered Demeter. Joe's early roles of guard and Anubis, indicate a Hades like character. The relationship is presented as "right and good". This all indicates that Nicholas's view of sex and relationships needs to change in order for him to have a relationship, this costs him Allison.

Maddie: A crossover between The Magus and Stranger than Fiction.
In The Magus Nicholas hears about Bourani, and it sucks him into his own separate reality, different from the world he actually occupies. He then learns that he was part of an experiment that was supposed to better him, but did not. In Stranger than Fiction, Harold Creek starts to hear his life being narrated, he then learns that he is a character in a book, and that this story line will move forward without him doing anything. He then seeks out the author, Karen Eiffel, and reads her book, discovering that it is his reality.

Eric: Comparison of The Magus to The Lesser Blessed.
Nicholas has bipolar thoughts about Allison which starts his initiation. The Lesser Blessed is a story about a Native American (Canadian) who has a rather horrible life, and kills his father, but knows the power of story telling. Through love, the dead can live. Be aware of your surroundings.

Rosemary: The Proscenium of The Magus revealed.
Rosemary essentially retold The Magus all while handing out cards to us that had words that she had to look up while she was reading The Magus.

Kevin: Death and trickery.
Kevin compared the rolling of the dice at Bourani to the creation of music by Hermes after annoying Apollo. He also mentioned the women of The Magus as being like the Sirens from the Iliad. He mentions how Persephone is tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds.

Bailey: Board game poster.
Bailey compared The Magus to a board game where you go around the board and end up where you started. Also stating that no matter how Nicholas might have done things, it all would have ended the same.

Parker: Nicholas Urfe's lack of development.
Nicholas's view of reality is very different from the reality of the situation, he also doesn't seem to be able to recognize this. He goes to Phraxos to free himself but truly confines himself more. Conchis shows Nicholas how unrealistic he is, and how destructive this is in relationships. Nicholas is truly trying to escape from his mind.

Stephanie: Mirrors and The Magus.
Stephanie brought a mirror with her to demonstrate her point. The mirror represented the future, where Nicholas's reflection is his "future self". We change, but the mirror does not. Cracking mirrors will give different patterns, but the result is always the same. The gods explained what we could not, and though they are gone, the cracks remain for us to follow.

NOTICE: Everyone- please come to class next week. There weren't many people there on Thursday, and it'll make it harder for our test review next Thursday if we have to spend the entire time on individual presentations. Just in case we don't have many people again, those who would have gone next Thursday may want to be ready in case we have room for you next Tuesday, that will keep things rolling along quite nicely and make everyone happy.  PLEASE COME TO CLASS FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER!!!!!!!!!!! ONLY TWO MORE CLASSES!!!!!!!