The Heroic Pattern

• discuss Freudian theories regarding the "good" divine father and the "bad" human one.
• trace the hero's pattern—from his (often unusual) birth through his journey to the Underworld.
• explain how the hero continues a process begun by Prometheus's defiance of Zeus.
• use specific examples from the text to demonstrate the hero's ability to "uplift humanity from its dismal condition and remind it of its godlike potential."
• explain why "the polarities of the hero's experience produce a being who is contradictory in his very essence."
• explain why heroes often find themselves in conflict with "one deity or another."
• discuss the divided nature of the hero and his subsequent psychological dilemma.
• justify the text's assertion that "the bonds of love, domestic contentment, and/or sexual indulgence are destructive to the heroic task."
• identify the political dimension of the hero's social role.
• explain how—despite their frequent battles—the hero resembles the centaur.
• explain how the centaur embodies "the best and worst of human potentialities."
• explain how Chiron embodies "all that culture and civilization have to offer."

The Early Hero: Perseus

After studying this section of the chapter you should be able to

• explain how Perseus's relationship to women distinguishes him from later heroes.
• explain how Perseus's birth (and the events directly following his birth) connects him to the Great Goddess.
• justify the text's assertion that "even while destroying the terrifying chthonic powers of the female, Perseus does not reject feminine powers altogether."
• explain how Perseus, in relation to later heroes, effects a more thorough reconciliation of the human and divine.
• explain why Perseus's entrance into the Gorgon's cave doubles as a symbolic entrance into the Underworld.
• discuss Medusa's connection(s) to the primal Goddess.
• describe Perseus's adventures surrounding his marriage to Andromeda.
• discuss the complete cycle of the heroic rite of passage as seen in Perseus's story.
• explain how Perseus represents an early stage in the shift from a matriarchal to a patriarchal system.
• identify the etiological function of the myth of Perseus.

The Archetypal Hero: Heracles

• explain why Heracles is strongly associated with the centaur.
• explain why it is fitting (and maybe ironic) that "Heracles" means "Glory of Hera."
• explain how Heracles' early exploits reveal the ambiguity of his heroism.
• use examples from the myth of Heracles to justify the text's assertion that "the hero becomes a menace in time of peace."
• identify the hero's many functions and attributes as they are represented in Heracles' twelve labors.
• justify the text's assertion that Heracles "mediates the most extreme of contradictions, not only those of nature and culture but those of life and death as well."
• explain how Heracles is killed by Deianeira's attempt to domesticate him.
• discuss the text's assertion that, in the myth of Heracles, "the hero remains divided in death as in life."

Other Heroes: Theseus and Jason

• explain why Theseus must pass a text in order to assert his political and divine inheritance.
• discuss the role of the Cretan bull in the myths of Heracles and Theseus.
• recount Theseus's adventures in the labyrinth.
• justify the text's assertion that "(in the labyrinth) life and death, sacrifice and renewal, converge on each other."
• recount the unhappy events which lead to the deaths of both Phaedra and Hippolytus.
• discuss Theseus's role in Athenian politics.
• use the story of Golden Fleece to explain why Jason is "the most equivocal of the heroes."
• justify the text's assertion that, for Jason, the hero's quest "degenerates into a quest for power in merely human, and thus venial, terms."
• explain how the primal goddess has her revenge in figures like Medea.

The Upper Limits of Human Ambition: Phaethon

After studying this section of the chapter you should be able to discuss the text's assertion that the myths of Phaethon and Icarus "provide an alternative perspective on the heroic impulse."