Literary Analysis The Odyssey And The Popol Vuh Essay

Through out the reading that have been read in class, they all have some type or multiple types of archetypes with in them. These archetypes have been either very noticeable or farther under the surface, the stories, poems and folklore are not all the same by any means but they do have some similarities besides the fact that they are all old. Ranging from The Odyssey to The Popol Vuh. The way of describing which archetype is in the stories is by thinking of an onion, that layer by layer seeing the archetype is more under the surface than the last, so the most significate is a scapegoat that is within all six stories. The scapegoat is not always a person it more than likely is an idea the main character has when trying to go around their fears or even when making a simple decision. The respectable way to compare six different works would be like peeling an onion; one begins by peeling away at the layers, starting with the skin which is the simplest like The Odyssey, then The Pillowboo k of Sei Shonagon, afterwards The Epic of Gilgamesh, following Poems of Catullus, later The Popol Vuh and lastly Lysistrata with all of the writings sharing a scapegoat to advance the plot of the story To begin with the first layer of finding the archetype is easiest when looking at The Odyssey by Homer. There are actually quite a few archetypes just within this epic story, but when talking about a scapegoat a handful come to mind. The first one can be found in the first five books when it talks