For my research paper, I will be discussing about tricksters in history. Tricksters are archetype figures that are known for tricking other divine beings and humans for others benefit, or for their own personal gain. Tricksters I believe are those that give some sort of meaning to life. For instance, without bad, it would become really difficult to notice what is good in the world and vice versa. Some examples of tricksters are Prometheus from Greek mythology and Loki from Norse mythology.
These figures are one of the most well-known tricksters in history. Tricksters are mostly described of always causing disorder and chaos to the human race. (Connor 1). This can sometimes be confused with Catholic religion, saying that the Devil is there tricksters. They’re not the same for one reason, the devil is immortal, while tricksters can die or be killed. In O’Connor’s explanation in characterizing tricksters “One of the predominant characteristics of trickster is his restless, wandering nature.
Like Br’er or Br’er Fox, we continually meet him “coming down the road” as the tale begins”. (Connors 3). I believe that Tricksters are important icons in human history. They help provide the reason why people do some of the things that they do. That without tricksters, people won’t be able to reach their goals once they have passed on in life. Without the tricksters, humans wouldn’t be able to see which divine being is the most pure and good for them.
Without them, no one would have to accomplish anything in life and they would believe that everything would be given to them on a silver platter. Without tricksters, both the real world and the literary world would be totally different. In Greek myths, Hermes and Prometheus were the two major tricksters that became cultural heroes. The story of Prometheus is that he was a titan that was allied with the Olympians when the Titans and Olympians were at war with each other. Prometheus and the Olympians won the war and were the most worshipped gods at that time.
Later on in history, the king of gods, Zeus, soon started trying to trick humans into benefiting him and the gods only. One way that he had tried to do this is by trying to trick the humans into sacrificing the meat of an animal to them while the humans ate the bones and whatever remained of that sacrificed animal, when the meat is sacrificed to one of the gods, the gods would eat the meat that was sacrificed to them and would have an endless feast. Prometheus, however, didn’t like the fact that Zeus was willing to trick them to get what he wanted.
So, Prometheus had gave humans the idea of instead of sacrificing the meat of an animal and having to eat the bones and unwanted parts of the animal, they sacrificed the bone and other parts, and the humans had ate the finer parts of the animal. Zeus was enraged that he was tricked and as a result, he was so angry that the humans gave the gods the most inedible part of the animal, that he choose to take fire away from them, leaving the whole world in darkness. Prometheus had managed to steal fire back from Zeus and gave it back to humans in an effort to help humanity.
Zeus was even angrier and decided to punish Prometheus by chaining him to the top of a mountain and to have a hungry eagle eat away at his liver. Since Prometheus is immortal, his liver regenerates overnight and the eagle comes back to feast on him again. In a way of giving the humans something to learn from, Zeus asked Hephaestus, the god of craftsmanship, and other gods to make the first women of Earth. She was created with beauty and cunning. When Hephaestus was done creating her, she was given to as a gift to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, and was given a jar as a wedding gift by Zeus.
The jar contained the deadly sins of humanity such as toil, sickness, anger, strife, etc. When Zeus gave the jar to her, he told her under no exceptions that she should open the lid of the jar. Giving her gift of woman curiosity giving to by the gods, she cracked the lid open and all of the deadly sins flew out of the jar and into the world. The only spirit that remained was the spirit of hope that was shy and possibly the only thing that humanity had to protect itself from the deadly sins, but Pandora closed the lid back onto the jar. Pandora opening the box-of-sins. Another god in Greek Mythology is the Greek god Hermes.
Hermes is the god of traveling, athletics and thieves. Hermes also acted as the messenger for the gods’ for each other or for the human race. Hermes was also known to use his wits to trick other gods. When Hermes was a little infant, he took his brother, Apollo’s, herd of cattle and hid them in a cave. He had gotten away with this for a while because he wore his sandals backwards, so that Apollo won’t be able to follow his tracks. Apollo suspected that it was Hermes had stolen his cattle, but he had no proof of this that he had taken his cattle. Apollo soon found his herd in a cave and found