Around the world everyone is grouped into a certain social status which is mostly based on the amount of wealth you have. Social status has been around since Ancient Greek times and social status has been written in various pieces of literature.The purpose of this paper is to define social status and the types of social status in ancient Greece, and how social status affects storytelling from ancient Greece to stories of today.
Social status is “the relative rank that an individual holds, with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle, in a social hierarchy based upon honour or prestige (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.)There are three types of social classes in ancient Greece. …show more content…
Ancient Greeks were well known for creating stories. They had various techniques for writing stories like figurative language, proverbs and the theme of hero’s journey that is still used today. In Greece there were many various different poets who used all different types of figurative language like similes, metaphors and personification. One of the most famous poets in ancient Greece was a man named Homer. Homer created many great stories and his most famous was The Odyssey .This is a simile used in The Odyssey ,"Her mind in torment, wheeling like some lion at bay, dreading the gangs of hunters closing their cunning ring around him for the finish"(The Odysseus 65 pg). This simile explains Penelope’s emotion about the feeling of all the suitors around her. “Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus rose and dressed himself”(The Odyssey 58 pg) This personification in the text makes the sun seem like a person. “Nine years ago we wove a web of disaster”(The Odyssey 95 pg). This metaphor is when Odysseus is trapped on an island and he is thinking about what happened. In Ancient Greece there are various different proverbs that they used that are still applicable today. The proverb “ many words is poverty” means that speaking too much is bad for you and that you should just act. Another proverb is “my home, my little home, a little house of my own”. This is the english equivalent to “Home, sweet home.” The final proverb is “too many opinions sink the boat.” An equivalent to English would be “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”(Omilo) These proverbs shows that many of the same thinks that the ancient Greek people spoke and taught about are still being used today. In ancient Greek storytelling, there are a lot of stories that involve a common plot line called hero’s journey. One of the main stories that involves hero’s journey is the book The Odyssey. The Odyssey involves a hero