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LITR 4231 Early American Literature 2012 Student Midterm Samples #1. Long essay describing and focusing learning, challenges, issues concerning Early American Literature. (6-8 paragraphs) |
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Rochelle LaTouche
Religion: It’s all relative, right?
While taking a Greek Mythology class at UHCL, I realized
similarities among the diverse religious writings. As I was reading Ovid’s
Metemorphoses, I could not help but recognize
the intertextuality of this book with the Bible. The deadly flood that washed
away the people of the earth was only one of the several stories mentioned from
Ovid that I had read from the Bible. As I entered this Early American Literature
class, I noticed the same patterns occurring, except it was a more specific
point of intertexuality, and that was in the creation stories. Creation stories
may not be telling the same story; however, many do duplicate ideas. The
Iroquois creation story, the Zuni (
Although
religions as a whole are primarily relative, some share comparable features in
their creation stories. The first instance is in the case of Genesis and the
Iroquois creation story number two. The Iroquois story believes that “Skywoman”
falling to the earth sparked the creation of man. Alternately, Genesis
attributes the creation of man to God. Despite these differing perspectives,
both stories reveal the idea about the special tree. The Iroquois claimed that “here
was a
tree growing in the center of Sky World. It was called the Tree of Life,”
and that no one was to disturb that tree or something bad would happen.
Similarly, God claimed in Genesis that “Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Needless to say, both of the trees
were disturbed and the people who disturbed them were punished.
This Iroquois story had been around for a long time before
it was written in the eighteen-hundreds. The actual scribing of the story
happened centuries after the first Christians entered
Like the
Iroquois creation story, the Zuni creation story was not actually written until
the eighteen hundreds, and it too shares common aspects with Genesis,
particularly through its explanation on why the earth has night and day. The
Zunis assert, “Through
ages there was nothing else except black darkness…
the All-father Father thought
outward in space, and mists were created and up-lifted. Thus through his
knowledge he made
himself the Sun who was thus created and is the great Father. The
dark spaces brightened with light.” Likewise, Genesis claims, “And the earth
was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God
said, Let there be light; and there was light.” Both creation stories
acknowledge the idea that the earth was once pure darkness and a god was the
reason that light came to be. Similar to the Iroquois, the Zuni tribe was
exposed to Christians when Spanish missionaries inhabited their village in the
late sixteenth century. Perhaps the occurrence of syncretism happened as well.
Could this be a reason that the two stories have a common trait?
Genesis
not only shares similarities with the Indian creation stories but with the Roman
creation story as well. Unlike the Christians, the Romans believed in multiple
gods, but they attributed the creation of the earth to one god, although they
never mention his name. This one god, like the Christian god, felt that men were
superior to all other beings on earth and should hold power over them. “Yet a
holier living creature [than animals], more able to think high thoughts, which
could hold dominion over the rest, was still to be found. So man came into the
world.” Similarly, in Genesis it is written, “Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. “ Both creation
stories intended to make men superior to all other living creatures. Given that
Christianity was founded on the same land mass as the Romans, perhaps there
could have been an exchange of religious ideas among the different countries.
One might ask what all
of these common elements in creation stories means. Does it mean that there is
one account from which these creation stories derived? Since the creation
stories were originally presented orally, did the stories alter as new stories
were discovered (a case of syncretism)? Are religions speaking of the same God
creating the earth but just giving him a different name? These are questions
that can be ambiguously answered. However, the primary question might be: how
does this realization of commonalities in creation stories matter now?
How does it matter now? Although most religions believe in different Gods, different terms of salvation, and even different patterns of the afterlife, it cannot go unnoticed that many creation stories do not vary as much as one would think. These commonalities in creation stories should assist in the realization that maybe people, despite their religious beliefs, are not that different. Although religions may have completely diverse attitudes, their ideas on the beginning of life are similar, whether their similarities are due to syncretism or merely chance. This awareness of comparable aspects of religion could create a tolerance and perhaps an embracement of other religions. Professor White asserts that creation stories not only matter because of the religious aspect, but they also matter because they tell people who they are. Maybe these similarities mean that people have a common component that unites them all.
