On an unknown Island named Earth, where it is perfect for human survival with a lot of natural sources and foods, various human races lived together. Among them, there is the most significant feature called Gaia. The one thing that people do not know is that Gaia is one of the subordinates of Zeus. Zeus sent him to the human’s island to look for the settlement. Zeus needs some people who provide him with sacrifice monthly as a ritual to fulfill his energy (which is his greed). Gaia's face is full of wrinkles that cannot be compared to human’s wrinkles and had the same body size as normal people. This is the disguised appearance of Gaia to deceive normal people. Even though his original appearance is a giant which can bring more hostility toward normal people, everybody was shocked by his appearance at the first time because they have never seen a feature like him before. However, Gaia always treated other people in a good manner and tried to be a friend. A few years later, his effort to be harmonized with others relieved people’s fear, but on the other hand, it also brought side effects. Young children made fun of him with appearance such as giving him the epithet “Ugly”, and some mean people bullied him for no reason. Gaia was so upset with people being mean and went back to Olympus to ask for Zeus to give him a power that makes people on the island have a hard time. Since Zeus observed all the situations that Gaia experienced on the island, he promised that Gaia will get power in a few days after he gets back to the Island, but he did not tell which power is going to be provided for Gaia.
There is no way that normal people can know the fact that Gaia is a subordinate of Zeus and sent to that island with purpose. Therefore, their bullying towards Gaia became more vicious and eviler. Gaia did not know which power he got from Zeus, therefore, he had no idea what to do when people did not stop bullying him. As a result, Gaia's anger in his heart became bigger and bigger whenever people bullied him. After a few years later, people realized that their island became hotter every year and that resulted in damage to farming and devastate their normal life. At this point, people doubted the existence of Gaia who has a different appearance from normal people and suddenly came to this island. To check why Gaia comes to the island, people stopped making fun of him and tried to be kind by providing him with a comfortable house and delicious food. These efforts loosened his heart and as a result, the island’s temperature also stops increasing. Both Gaia and people finally realized that Gaia's anger in his heart became a temperature of that island and that is the power that Zeus gave to Gaia. After realizing this fact, people changed their attitude towards Gaia, but it is too late to restore the island. Gaia already got hurt and upset with the people and there is no way he can recover his heart.
Analysis
This story is an etiological myth about a phenomenon, global warming. The setting of the story is an unknown island named Earth that is full of natural sources and suitable for a human’s comfortable life. This setting is very similar to the “real” Earth where we are living nowadays. Many races live together and have a lot of natural sources and foods in both places. To summarize the contents of the story, the protagonist whose name is Gaia got the power to control the temperature of the island by controlling his heart himself. And finally, it leads to global warming that ruin the farm and devastate people’s life.
Before starting the actual analysis of the contents, the reason why the background of the story is “unknown island” is to show that global warming is not the problem that is limited in one place, but it is the crisis that is happening all over the world.
To begin with, for the characters' setting, both Zeus and Gaia in the story also appear in ancient Greek mythology. Gaia was treated as an Earth according to Homeric Hymn. There is a song for Gaia, and it said, “Of Gaia, the mother of all, shall I sing, firm foundation, eldest of gods, who nourishes all things in the world” (Hesiod, Homeric Hymns 209). In other words, Gaia is the beginning of all the existences in the world, and it can be also considered as Earth which is a basic background for all creations. In contrast, I changed all the characteristics of Gaia except for the fact that Gaia is considered as Earth. The reason why I changed the gender of the Gaia from female to male is to depict his anger as more powerful and tougher. For the same reason, Gaia’s appearance is changed to a giant. These changes are the general stereotypes that we can usually see in ancient Greek. Also, since Gaia is a mother of all features including gods and goddesses, she was in a stronger position than Zeus in the original myth. However, in my story, Zeus can proctor what Gaia is doing on the island and gave him the power to control the temperature. Changes in some characteristics and this opposite position add more excitement and make the audience feel something different because most of the contents are totally different compared to what we already knew about. The most important reason why I put this character is that by putting the character Gaia with keeping the meaning of Earth, it could explain why the anger of his heart impacts the increasing temperature of the island. Bullying Gaia in my story is the same as what humans did to Earth such as increasing the use of cars and cutting the trees that cause global warming. Global warming can be considered as a punishment that comes from bullying the Earth and I tried to depict this situation by showing similar people’s attitudes toward Gaia.
Moreover, there is an epithet for Gaia, “Ugly”. The epithet is a nickname that can replace the real name and represent the characteristic. In fact, this term is usually used for depicting heroes and gods in the original myth but in this story, “Ugly” is an epithet that is used just for depicting the appearance of Gaia. In ancient Greek mythology, there also appear some epithets. For example, in Homeric Hymns, there is a sentence, “pray to me as Apollo Delphinius; also, the altar itself shall be called Delphinius and overlooking forever”. In this sentence, “overlooking” is an epithet of Zeus and it is one of his characteristics (Hesiod, Homeric Hymns 3.495).
The next thing to compare between ancient Greek mythology and my myth is about the settlement. In the Odyssey, which stories are happening around the Greek colonization era, in Odysseus’ journey returning to the homeland after Trojan War, he encountered a lot of unknown islands and abnormal features such as Cyclops. Even though his purpose is not colonization, when he encountered the wooded island that is located across the Cyclops’ land where it has fertile land, natural sources, and a lot of foods for all seasons, he wanted to make it a settlement (Doherty 2001). In other words, he wanted to colonize that island. Because he is a king of Ithaca and a hero who leads the Trojan War to victory, he might have the responsibility of colonizing other islands to make Ithaca stronger. As a result, the concept of colonization has appeared. The myth that I created also has a concept of colonization. This setting not only shows that the story is happening in the colonization era but also shows the relationship between Gaia and normal people. We can know that Gaia is on the superior side to the normal people even though he was bullied by the people at the first time because he was sent to the island for purpose of colonization and colonizing is the same as conquering the other island in the stronger position. The purpose of the colonization in this myth is to fulfill their greed from humans what makes him feel like the man of power. A similar ritual could be found in ancient Greek. Most of the gods in ancient Greek mythology are offered some sacrifices. There are some quotes like, “...they founded an altar of Radiant Apollo, and having offered sacrifice they betook them to feasting…” (Apollodorus, The Library). This represents that offering sacrifices to the gods is the ritual that is generally happened in that era and I apply this concept to show the reason for colonization in my myth.
Also, there is a story that Gaia disguised himself to deceive normal people. This concept also appears in the journey of Odysseus. Odysseus went through many hardships and adversities and finally arrived at his homeland, Ithaca. However, due to Odysseus’ long journey for more than 20 years, many suitors came to Penelope who is the wife of Odysseus and wait for her to decide whom to marry her. To attack them suddenly without getting caught that he is Odysseus, Athena disguised him as an old beggar, and he met Telemachus first to tell him about his plan (Homer, Odyssey 13.430-). In this aspect, Gaia and Odysseus used the same method to deceive people who make them upset. If Gaia went to the island in an original appearance, which is a giant, people might doubt his existence at the first time because giants are always related to gods or goddesses. For example, Cyclops who is Polyphemus whom Odysseus met in his journey is a son of Poseidon who is a god of the sea (Homer, Odyssey 9.360-412). However, since his appearance is almost the same as human, and the only difference is a face with countless wrinkles, people just treated him as an ugly human. This disguised appearance is successfully used to reveal people’s real personalities. If they know that Gaia is a subordinate of Zeus, then they might not bully him and pretend to be a kind person which is not their “real” personality. Therefore, I can say that people on the island ruin themselves by showing their real personality to Gaia.
The last thing is about another character, Zeus. According to ancient Greek mythology, Zeus gave a punishment to mankind because when mankind gave Zeus a sacrifice, they rolled and wrapped the flesh and fat intestines with cowhide and covered the bones of the cow with glossy oil to deceive Zeus. This action stirred up Zeus’s anger and Zeus made a pandora jar to punish mankind. There are all kinds of disasters and evils in the jar and mankind’s curiosity destroyed the land by opening the jar (Hesiod, Works&Days 54-). In my story, Zeus did not directly give punishment to the people on the island, but by giving Gaia the power to control his heart that affects the temperature of the island, Zeus indirectly gave a punishment to humans. Also, the same thing with the original myth is that the reasons why Zeus gave the punishment in both stories are from human’s fault. In other words, showing an attitude that makes god upset leads their own life destroyed.
In conclusion, there are some similarities and differences between ancient Greek mythology and the myth that I created to explain the origin of global warming. Both can be seen in the ancient readings such as Homeric Hymn and Odyssey which are the most popular books and poems in ancient Greek.
Bibliography
Dougherty, Carol. The Cyclopean Model: Cannibalism. The Raft of Odysseus: the ethnographic imagination of Homer's Odyssey. Oxford University Press, 2001. pp 134.
Homer, Odyssey. Book 13.430-
Homer, Odyssey Book 9.360-412
Hesiod, Works & Days 54 ff translated by. Evelyn-White. Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
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