Essay

Nogle der vil kigge dette igennem for evt store brølere? :) I opgave 2 skal vi beskrive hvorfor, sådan en myte som pygmalionmyten stadig er populær, har lidt svært ved at komme på noget, skriv endelig hvis du har en idé :) På forhånd tak

1.
People meets and fall in love. When you are in love you are very fascinated by the other person’s qualities. But later on when the flowering love becomes more daily some people begin to focus on the other person’s faults and try to change that. The person who is being changed is having a hard time and maybe thinks: “Am I not good enough” and gets uncertain. Those kind of relationships is going to fail.
This is also what “For Their Own Survival” is about. After eleven years of marriage Liz takes a big decision: she wants to leave Sam.
Sam seems to be very robust. He broke down recruits and build them up again and made them soldiers who were equipped to kill and to be ready to go to war. Sam has a need to control everything. He needs to control the soldiers – which is his job and he also changes Liz, he makes her think that she can not live without him so she will not leave him and that is maybe the reason why she is so afraid of loosing him – so he also has the control over her. So he has the control in his personal life and on the job.
Before Liz meat Sam she used to be very shy and worried all the time. She was also a failed painter. She did not have much confidence and was afraid of too much attention. Then she meets Sam. And he also breaks her to build her again – but this time with more kindness. He builds her up to a confidence woman.
They had a very close relationship. They did everything together and when she leaves him he do not know what he shall do and even two years later he feels lonely. After Sam’s opinion they had a happy marriage and that could be the reason why he do not understand that she lives him. He do not understand that she maybe feel depressed or confused. He made her to a new woman – in some way a better woman but it was not that woman he felt in love with. So changing her could make her think, that he does not love her the way she was.
And then we see a connection between the text and the heading. Sam builds up soldiers for their own survival – so they have a chance when they for an example go to war. He also build Liz up so she cam survive on her own. The only one he has forgotten is him self. The day Liz leaves him he do not know what to do with himself.
The marlin is a symbol:
“She would have lost the huge fish if he hadn’t taken it for her and guided it through its last thrashings”
It is a symbol of that Liz let Sam take over what she was doing – she let him take the control.
Another symbol is this sentence:
“its color drained until it looked almost black”
It is a symbol of their relationship. It starts good and they are both in love. Later Liz leaves him. It could also be a symbol of Sam’s state of mind. He is happy together with Liz but when she leaves him he do not know what to do and is very unhappy. Another symbol to it could be: when he met Liz she was very colorful but after he was trying to change her she fainted.
At the end Sam realizes that the answer and understanding to the breaking up may be found in Mexico. In Baja he tries to repeat their last holiday and he finds the boat and the captain from two years ago. Once again he fights a marlin but it quickly loose the colors and that makes Sam sad so he realize that he has to let the marlin go: maybe he realize, what he had done to Liz at know that he can not make it up so he has to let go of her.
In the poem “Sunnet 14” the person regrets that he did not show more love to the girl when they were together. After she leaved him he realized what he did wrong. It sounds like he finds it very difficult to move on. Just like Sam. He can not move on at all.
In the text “A collection of quotations” three men, Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther and Alfred Lord Tennyson, describes the women’s role. At first Freud is asking what a woman want, the same answer is Sam trying to find in a book he buys. He wants to find out why Liz left him. Luther and Tennyson degrade women. They do not say any positive word. It could sounds like someone just leaved them and they suffer by lovesickness. Sam also suffer by lovesickness – very much. But still he does not wants to tell her how he fells, he hopes that she will come back.
Love will never be easy. It is so lovely to be in love and it is so painful when the one you love leaves you. You have a big responsibility when you are in a relationship – you can not just change another person – it could break another person. Just like Sam breaks Liz. In the end you have to leave the person.

2.
Pygmalion was a very good sculptor. He made a female sculpture of ivory. Later he felt in love with this woman and treated it like a real person. He wanted the sculpture to become alive and his request was heard!
I think that this myth still is modern is because of its meaning. Pygmalion does only fall in love with the sculpture because of its look. Men today is often accused of doing the same and it could also be the same in Sam’s case. Later he change Liz – maybe because he only felt in love with her because of her look. The sculpture shows how a perfect woman has to look like and that some men do not look at the inner of a woman.
Even though some myths are very old they describe a normal problem. A problem which will remain a problem even if it was for many years ago or if it is now. We can still find the problem in the myths.