Echo+and+Narcissus


 * Background Story: **

When Zeus goes to visit the mountains, he is greeted by many wood nymphs who happily greet him and play with him. Zeus' wife, Hera, begins to get suspicious and attempts to find him with the nymphs, but, every time she tries, she is greeted by a nymph named Echo, who stalls the goddess by talking with her. Eventually Hera discovers that Echo has been tricking her, and punishes her by making her only able to repeat the last words of whatever someone else has said. She sees a young hunter in the woods named Narcissus and falls in love with him. Being very self-centered, Narcissus rejects the nymph's attempts to love him and makes his way to the lake. Once there, he sees and admires his own reflection. He stays there and watches it until he dies. While this is happening, Echo hid in a cave until she slowly begins to fade away. Only her voice remains, and she stays in the mountains, repeating the last words of whoever speaks there.

*This story not only serves to explain the phenomenon of the echo, but also teaches a theme as well. It suggests that one should not be extremely self-centered as it could lead to horrible consequences.


 * Allusions: **

Allusions to the myth of Echo and Narcissus revolve around either one of the two characters. An "Echo" in any form of literature could be described as a girl in desperation of finding a lover who rejects her. A "Narcissus", on the other hand, is a character who has intense love for oneself. A "Narcissus'" love for him/herself may be what, in the end, leads the character to his/her demise.
 * Novel || * "The Picture of Dorian Gray"- Oscar Wilde
 * Series: "Harry Potter"- J. K. Rowling
 * "The Return of the Native"- Thomas Hardy ||
 * Poem || * "Personal Helicon"- Seamus Heaney ||
 * Play || * "Romeo and Juliet"- Shakespeare ||

**Personal Helicon** Seamus Heaney As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.

I savoured the rich crash when a bucket

Plummeted down at the end of a rope.

So deep you saw no reflection in it. A shallow one under a dry stone ditch

Fructified like any aquarium.

When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch

A white face hovered over the bottom. Others had echoes, gave back your own call

With a clean new music in it. And one

Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall

Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection. Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,

To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring

Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme

To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Hardy, Thomas, and George Woodcock. //The Return of the Native //. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1985. Print. Heaney, Seamus. "Personal Helicon" Neopoet. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014 "Mr. Marassa - Greek Mythology." //Mr. Marassa - Greek Mythology //. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.

Rowling, J. K., and Jim Dale. //Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone //. New York: Listening Library/Random House Audio, 1999. Print. Shakespeare, William, and Alan Durband. //Romeo and Juliet //. Woodbury, NY: Barron's, 1985. Print.

Wilde, Oscar, and Joseph Bristow. //The Picture of Dorian Gray //. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.