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Intermediate Language Arts
Heroic
Plots
If you’re going to study story plots, including conflict, climax, and resolution, then
why not go back to some of the
oldest stories around: the tales of
mythological Greek heroes? In
fact, the Greek word “mythos”
means story or plot!
(top) “Hercules and
Antaeus” (bottom)
“Perseus”
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Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
Let’s take a quick refresher course on the important plot
terms and then dive into some of the most famous
Greek myths!
Use any or all of the following glossary sites to fill in the
definitions of the terms below:
Cyber English’s Literary Terms
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/terms/
(More complex definitions can be found at this glossary’s
sister site: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/)
Virtual Salt: A Glossary of Literary Terms
http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm
The Emotional Pattern of Plot
http://www.storylink.com/article/86
Meyer Literature - Glossary of Literary Terms
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/gloss
ary_a.htm
Having looked them up on one or more of the above sites,
explain each of these terms in your own words:
Plot:
Conflict:
Climax:
Resolution:
Subplot:
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Heroic Plots
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Intermediate Language Arts
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Now we’re going to apply these terms to Greek myths, in
particular the stories of some of the most famous
Greek heroes. Choose one of the heroes from the list below.
Select one of the accompanying websites to read that hero’s
story and fill in the examples of each of the five terms you
just looked up.
Jason
Mythweb
http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/jason.html
Jason and the Golden Fleece
http://www.unc.edu/~rwilkers/resource-greece.htm
Perseus
Greek Mythology
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/GG/pers
eus.html
Mythweb
“Odysseus
and
http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/perseus.html
Nausicaa”
Odysseus
Mythweb
http://www.mythweb.com/od
yssey/index.html
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Intermediate Language Arts
Bellerophon
Mythweb
http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/bellerophon
Greek Mythology: Bellerophon
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/GG/b
ellerophon.html
TEACHERS
You’ll notice the absence of Theseus and Hercules from the
list. The stories of Theseus and Hercules are both sprawling epics covering their entire lives. If you would like to
offer them as an option to students, we suggest having
them focus only on Theseus’ adventures on Crete or
Hercules’ Twelve Labors from the following sites:
Theseus
Mythweb
http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/theseus/
Hercules (or Heracles)
Mythweb
http://www.mythweb.com/hercules/
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Heroic Plots
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Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
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The hero:
The plot (A short description in your own words of what the
story is about):
What do you consider to be the five most important plot points
(things that happen) in the story:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Select two things that you think could be the main conflict of
the story:
1)
2)
Upon careful thought, which do you think is the main conflict?
Heroic Plots
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Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
Why?
What are two points that you think could be considered the
climax of the story?
1)
2)
Which do you feel is the climax of the story?
Why?
What are two points that you think could be considered the
resolution of the story?
1)
2)
If your school
subscribes to
BritannicaSchool,
be sure to check
out the related
articles on the
site.
Which do you feel is the true resolution?
Why?
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Heroic Plots
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Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
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Now, look back over your notes (and perhaps reread the story)
to record the following information:
The primary (main) conflict:
Three major plot points (events) that affected this conflict and
came BEFORE the climax and resolution:
1)
2)
3)
The climax of the primary conflict:
The resolution of the primary conflict:
The secondary conflict (or subplot):
Three major plot points (events) that affected this conflict and
came BEFORE the climax and resolution:
1)
2)
3)
The climax of the secondary conflict:
The resolution of the secondary conflict:
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TEACHER MATERIAL
Mythic Plots
From the
Encyclopædia Britannica
be based on psychological situations,
and its climaxes come in new states of
awareness—chiefly self-knowledge—on
the parts of the major characters.
Novel
Elemen
Plot
The novel is propelled through its
hundred or thousand pages by a
device known as the story or
plot. This is frequently conceived by the
novelist in very simple terms, a mere
nucleus, a jotting on an old envelope:
for example, Charles Dickens’ Christmas
Carol (1843) might have been conceived
as “a misanthrope is reformed through
certain magical visitations on Christmas
Eve,” or Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice (1813) as “a young couple destined to be married have first to overcome the barriers of pride and prejudice,” or Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime
and Punishment (1866) as “a young man
commits a crime and is slowly pursued
in the direction of his punishment.” The
detailed working out of the nuclear idea
requires much ingenuity, since the plot
of one novel is expected to be somewhat
different from that of another, and there
are very few basic human situations for
the novelist to draw upon. The dramatist may take his plot ready-made from
fiction or biography—a form of theft
sanctioned by Shakespeare—but the
novelist has to produce what look like
novelties.
Melodramatic plots, plots dependent on
coincidence or improbability, are sometimes found in even the most elevated
fiction; E.M. Forster’s Howards End
(1910) is an example of a classic British
novel with such a plot. But the novelist
is always faced with the problem of
whether it is more important to represent the formlessness of real life (in
which there are no beginnings and no
ends and very few simple motives for
action) or to construct an artifact as well
balanced and economical as a table or
chair; since he is an artist, the claims of
art, or artifice, frequently prevail. …
plot
in fiction, the structure of interrelated
actions, consciously selected and
arranged by the author. Plot involves a
considerably higher level of narrative
organization than normally occurs in a
story or fable. According to E.M. Forster
in Aspects of the Novel (1927), a story is a
“narrative of events arranged in their
time-sequence,” whereas a plot organizes
the events according to a “sense of
causality.”
In the history of literary criticism, plot
has undergone a variety of interpretations. In the Poetics, Aristotle assigned
The example of Shakespeare is a
primary importance to plot (mythos) and
reminder that the ability to create an
considered it the very “soul” of a tragedy.
interesting plot, or even any plot at all,
Later critics tended to reduce plot to a
is not a prerequisite of the imaginative
more mechanical function, until, in the
writer’s craft. At the lowest level of fiction, plot need be no more than a string Romantic era, the term was theoretically
degraded to an outline on which the
of stock devices for arousing stock
responses of concern and excitement in content of fiction was hung. Such outthe reader. The reader’s interest may be lines were popularly thought to
captured at the outset by the promise of exist apart from any particconflicts or mysteries or frustrations that ular work and to be
reusable and interchangewill eventually be resolved, and he will
able. They might be
gladly—so strong is his desire to be
endowed with life by a
moved or entertained—suspend criticism of even the most trite modes of res- particular author
through his developolution. In the least sophisticated ficment of character,
tion, the knots to be untied are strindialogue, or some
gently physical, and the denouement
often comes in a sort of triumphant vio- other element. The
lence. Serious fiction prefers its plots to publication of
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Heroic Plots
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books of “basic plots” brought plot to its
lowest esteem.
In the 20th century there have been
many attempts to redefine plot as movement, and some critics have even reverted to the position of Aristotle in giving
it primary importance in fiction. These
neo-Aristotelians (or Chicago school of
critics), following the leadership of the
critic Ronald S. Crane, have described
plot as the author’s control of the reader’s emotional responses—his arousal of
the reader’s interest and anxiety and the
careful control of that anxiety over a
duration of time. This approach is only
one of many attempts to restore plot to
its former place of priority in fiction.
Jason
in Greek mythology, leader of the
Argonauts and son of Aeson, king of
Iolcos in Thessaly. His father’s halfbrother Pelias seized Iolcos, and thus for
safety Jason was sent away to the
Centaur Chiron. Returning as a young
man, Jason was promised his inheritance
if he fetched the Golden Fleece for
Pelias, a seemingly impossible task. After
many adventures Jason abstracted the
fleece with the help of the enchantress
Medea, whom he married. On their
return Medea murdered Pelias, but she
and Jason were driven out by Pelias’ son
and had to take refuge with King Creon
of Corinth. Later Jason deserted Medea
for Creon’s daughter; this desertion and
its consequences formed the subject of
Euripides’ Medea.
Argonaut
in Greek legend, any of a band of 50
heroes who went with Jason in the ship
Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. …
The story of the expedition of the Argonauts
was known at least as
early as Homer, and the
wandering of Odysseus
may have been partly
founded on it. In ancient
times the expedition was
regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black
Sea to Greek commerce and colonization.
Perseus
in Greek mythology, the slayer of the
Gorgon Medusa and the rescuer of
Andromeda from a sea monster. Perseus
was the son of Zeus and Danaë, the
daughter of Acrisius of Argos… .
The Perseus legend was a favourite subject in painting and sculpture, both
ancient and Renaissance. The chief characters in the Perseus legend, Perseus,
Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and
the sea monster (Cetus), all figure in the
night sky as constellations.
Odysseus
plished the capture of Troy by means of
the wooden horse… .
In the Odyssey Odysseus has many
opportunities to display his talent for
ruses and deceptions; but at the same
time, his courage, loyalty, and magnanimity are constantly attested. Classical
Greek writers presented him sometimes
as an unscrupulous politician, sometimes
as a wise and honourable statesman.
Philosophers usually admired his intelligence and wisdom. Some Roman writers
(including Virgil and Statius) tended to
disparage him as the destroyer of Rome’s
mother city, Troy; others (such as
Horace and Ovid) admired him. The
early Christian writers praised him as an
example of the wise pilgrim. Dramatists
have explored his potentialities as a man
of policies; and romanticists have seen
him as a Byronic adventurer. In fact,
each era has reinterpreted “the man of
many turns” in its own way, without
destroying the archetypal figure.
(Greek), Latin ULIXES, English
ULYSSES, hero of Homer’s epic poem
the Odyssey and one of the most frequently portrayed figures in Western literature. According to Homer, Odysseus
was king of Ithaca, son of Laertes and
Anticleia (the daughter of Autolycus of
Parnassus), and father, by his wife,
Penelope, of Telemachus. (In later tradition, Odysseus was the son of Sisyphus
Bellerophon
and fathered sons by Circe, Calypso, and
also called BELLEROPHONTES, hero
others.)
in Greek legend. In the Iliad he was the
son of Glaucus, who was the son of
Homer portrayed Odysseus as a man of
Sisyphus of Ephyre (traditionally
outstanding wisdom and shrewdness,
Corinth)… .
eloquence, resourcefulness, courage, and
endurance. In the Iliad, Odysseus
Bellerophon’s adventures were frequently
appears as the man best suited to cope
represented in ancient art and formed
with crises in personal relations among
the subject of the Iobates of Sophocles
the Greeks, and he plays a leading part
and of the Bellerophontes and Stheneboea
in achieving the reconciliation between
of Euripides.
Agamemnon and Achilles. His bravery
and skill in fighting are demonstrated
repeatedly, and his wiliness is shown
most notably in the night expedition he
undertakes with Diomedes against the
Trojans.
Additional Websites
Kidipete – History for Kids – Greek
Myths
http://www.historyforkids.org/lear
n/greeks/religion/greerelig.htm
Greek Mythology – The Gods
http://www.desy.de/gna/interpedi
a/greek_myth/greek_myth.html
Greek Mythology Link - Biographies
http://www.maicar.com/GML/Biog
raphies.html
Odysseus’s wanderings and the recovery
of his house and kingdom are the central
theme of the Odyssey, an epic in 24
books that also relates how he accom-
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