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Just in case someone takes my recent writing at face-value, I would like to point out the articles "Halloween Story 2007" and "The Penelopiad: Point of View" were both written as the "Dark Humour" genre, in that serious topics such as end-of-the-world, killing, death, rape, and murder are treated in a humorous or satirical manner. I have hidden beneath the veneer of words, elements of irony, fatalism and sarcasm, which some readers might not have discovered.
Here is another example of my dark humour, a poem that I wrote many years ago, when my direct supervisor was dying of brain cancer and people in the office were eyeing his position even before his body had turned cold.
Pushing daises, six feet under;
Vultures circling, makes me wonder.
The ironic part is that: I was the one that won the vacant position in the end.
Here is another example of my dark humour, a poem that I wrote many years ago, when my direct supervisor was dying of brain cancer and people in the office were eyeing his position even before his body had turned cold.
Pushing daises, six feet under;
Vultures circling, makes me wonder.
The ironic part is that: I was the one that won the vacant position in the end.
(Photo Credit: "Hopscotch to Oblivion" from Wikipedia)
2 comments:
In defense of Odysseus.
Your postings have been thought-provoking. Just for sake of intellectual exercise, I'd like to point out that maids in the ancient Ithaca household are more like slave servants. In the time of waring city states, loyality is most valued virtue in the master-slave relationship.
In book-22 of Homer's Odyssey, the loyal maid told Odysseus 12 out of the 15 maids betray their mistress and consort the enemies (suitors). There are none of Atwood's story about the maids sacrificing themselves on behalf of their mistress. Hanging them is what a Greek king would reasonably do in their times. Since two chapters later in book-24, the families of the dead suitors attack Ithaca. Odysseus cannot afford to have traitor inside his house, or he and his family will end up slain.
Keith: I agree one cannot apply today's standard to the master-slave society of Greece 3000 years ago. But again, that was the intention of Atwood's thought-provoking feminist-based story: It was written for the sake of intellectual amusement as you said, the "what if" of Homer's Odyssey. I am glad you checked out Book 22 and 24 and confirmed that the maids were treacherous and guilty as charged, from Odysseus' POV. Good research !!!
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