The idea of this blog is more to provide two different viewpoints on issues, mostly relating to literature or the happenings in our lives. That said, the conversation that this post is based off of, we feel, was too good to pass up. Enjoy.
While on a decently long car ride last week without a working radio, Keisha and Chelsea began to discuss Literature. As is the case with many conversations between us, it began with Hamlet. Keisha remarked that Hamlet has some funny bits, despite being a tragedy, whereas Greek Tragedy is just depressing and dramatic throughout. It was quickly decided the Ancient Greeks were emo. For those who haven't been in High School lately, emo is short for emotional and is the less extreme version of being goth. If you don't know what that is, go make friends with a high-schooler who is dressed in black. We now present our proofs for why the Greeks were emo.
Have you ever read Greek Tragedy?
Things go from bad to worse to "is that even possible? " Poisoned dresses, children murdered by their mothers, finding out your wife is your mother and your children are your siblings and gouging your eyes out. It doesn't get much worse and those are only 2 plays. I would read more of them, but my therapist advises against it.
Togas
The real reason the Greeks wore togas was to show off their cut marks. The further up your arms and the deeper the cuts were showed how truly emo you were. The more emo you were, the higher in rank. Sleeveless togas worked perfectly to show off your cuts. Perhaps the artsy ones even made designs. Silly artists always wanting to show off. They took suffering for your art to an extreme.
Statues
This is exactly why the statues we find from ancient Greece have no arms. The decedents of the ancient Greeks became ashamed of their ancestors. They didn't want anyone to find the statures, complete with the cut marks. So they broke the arms off all of the statues. Somewhere, there is an ancient garbage dump full of nothing but marble arms complete with cut marks.
So there you have it. The Ancient Greeks were, without a doubt, emo.
I believe in the same car ride, we gave Hamlet a happy ending, but I believe we will defer that to another blog post.
