“Pa, what is race?”
Hanging the chip that I was able to eat mid-air, I was lost for words at my son’s sudden question who only started first grade a few months prior.
“Today, another kid came up to me and made fun of how my life will be more difficult because of my skin colour,” my son continues to explain, “and then he got in trouble…”
I remained silent, carefully contemplating the response that I am about to give him.
“Come over here, son.” I urge my son to move from the entrance of the living room to the couch that I’m sitting on. Placing the chip back down onto the tray, I give my son a big bear hug when he was close enough, to which he breaks out into a wide smile when I did.
“Alright son, listening to what I’m about.” I begin with my son nodding his head as a response. “Once upon a time, there was a dark-skin man from Greece who decided to take on what’s known as the twelve labours. Each labours entails a difficult task for the man to complete.”
I glance at my son whose eyes are glittering with youthful curiosity, so I continue telling the story: “The man lowered himself in front of a weak king and for his sake, he hunted sacred items, and fought powerful monsters. Overcoming the labours one by one. Why did you think he did all that for?”
“For power!” says my son innocently.
“Good guess, but incorrectly,” I put up a weary smile. “The man did it for the sake of making up for his past mistakes and for that purpose alone, he went through hardship and spent 12 years of his life on the labours. And in my opinion, that’s what made the man admirable, even more so than his battles against various monsters.”
I glace at my son once again. This time, however, he’s visibly confused.
“It’s alright if you don’t get it now but try to understand this, son. What I’m trying to say is the man is what’s known as melampugos in Greek, one who has a dark bottom, which is in contrast to topugargos, one who has a light bottom. The topugargos live a life free from danger while melampugos is born with a brave heart, suited to overcome the hardship they may experience in life and get to where they truly want in life.”
“Son, we are born as the descendent of that great man so you too are born as a melampugos. There will be hardship that you will go through in life, but there’s no doubt that you will be able to overcome them.” I put on a bright smile and patted my son’s head.
“Ok, Pa!” With that, my son returns the smile with a smile of his own.
Analysis
The narrative is structured as a short conversation between the father and son. My aim was to structure as the common event where parents were asked to answer a difficult question from their child and have to decide to either tell the truth, find a way to dodge the question or give an incorrect answer and have them figure it out on there on later on in life. However, considering this is an aetiological myth, the latter isn’t an option. To portray this as a common discussion that may occur between parents and their children, both the characters are unnamed and are known as “Pa” and son throughout.
For this narrative, Hercules’s myth was chosen to explain the racial differences in the world. The concept was inspired by an article named Racial Type Of The Ancient Greeks: A Racial Analysis Of The Ancient Hellenes. The article included a section describing the use of the words, melampugoes and topugargos in ancient Greece and various heroes and gods such as Muses, Poseidon, Alcmena, Theseus, Zeus, Dionysos, Hercules and Odysseus possessing the quality of either having dark hair or eyes and sometimes skin. In addition, according to the article, the Greek hero and king, Menelaus, is portrayed as an individual with a “dark face” and is portrayed as such to reflect the racial type of Greek aristocracy. As such, Ancient Greeks have a strong bias towards those with a dark skin tone and believe those with a lighter skin tone are inferior. Based on this information and the themes and motif of Hercules, I composed the story with a concrete theme in mind which I’ll discuss as I go through the themes of Hercules (Pontikos, Racial).
One of the key themes to Hercules is perseverance in which Hercules was to take one impossible task after another for years on ends. With his ironclad perseverance, Hercules was able to come out on top of the twelve labour. The same goes for those who suffered from racial discrimination or really, discrimination of any kind. Most will face obstacles in their life that they must overcome but the hardship will only exist in the present and with perseverance, they will find their life improving from before (Trzaskoma, Apollodorus).
A motif of Hercules is the labours themselves. With the completion of each labour, Hercules became wiser and learn more about his own strength and limitations, requiring him to think outside the box for labours to come. This can be seen as a metaphor for the obstacle one’s life has to go through to become wiser and a better human being or eventually reach a better place in life (Trzaskoma, Apollodorus).
Both ideas are indirectly implied in a passage of Apollodorus Bibliotheca: “She also told him to accomplish the ten labours imposed upon him and said that when the labours were finished, he would become immortal.” Hercules was to complete the harsh labours to obtain immortality and help lessen the guilt that plagued him after killing his family (Trzaskoma, Apollodorus 34).
With the themes and motifs in mind, as well as the information from the article, I wanted to write a story with the message of even if you’re handicapped in certain ways in life, you will be able to prevail as long as you persist. Ultimately, the narrative is there to explain the origin of racial difference being rooted in an individual’s capacity to achieve great things in life through the difference between melampugos and topugargos.
Work Cited
Pontikos, Dienekes. “Racial Type Of The Ancient Greeks: A Racial Analysis Of The Ancient
Hellenes.” greecehighdefinition, https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2019/5/30/racial-
type-of-the-ancient-hellenes-a-racial -analysis-of-the-ancient-greeks.
Trzaskoma, Stephen. Apollodorus Bibliotheca, edited by R. Scott Smith et al., Hackett Pub, 2004,
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