Chapter Twenty-One: Story Laboratory

I chose to do my Story Lab over the Crash Course videos.

The first video was an introduction to mythology. I really liked how they compared it to a giant slushy because of all the different subjects it includes. One thing they mentioned that stuck out to me was how different versions can come about do to time or other reasons. It reminded me of a story my grandma used to tell me when I was a little girl. It was called La Llorona. As I grew up I have heard several different versions of this story, so much that I really couldn’t tell you which one is the most accurate. I think this story was a perfect example of how mythology can change over time and become another story. 

The second video is about the theories of myth. What I thought was the most interesting part of the video was how the study of myths changed over time, which I guess was the whole point of the video. I thought it was interesting because if sort of follows the evolution of different mythological stories. Also, they mentioned how psychology turned to mythology as explanations as well. Apparently Freud used mythology as an explanation for the human unconscious and that mythical characters are projections of the unconscious.

The third video is about heroes. What I thought was interesting was the theory of the monomyth, or that all heroes follow the same journey. In a way I sort of agree, because if you look at our contemporary hero stories, they follow the same pattern. Look at any of the Avengers. The avengers follow the several different elements, although not exactly. 

I chose the image below because my favorite Greek Myth is Hercules, mostly because Disney made it into a wonderful movie and included some great songs.

(This image is titled Hercules Room Ceiling by Dennis Jarvis on Flickr)