Well this is me, looking very much like a homeless person.  This is because at this point in the semester I'm really broke.  I'm also projecting my future on myself right now.  I'm not really putting any hard work into school and i'm apathetic to everything and that also makes me think about how I'll be homeless due to my seemingly useless degrees.  I'm standing at a bus stop because i'm trying to figure out where I'm going and what I'm doing.  Notice that even though I'm homeless and crazy looking I still have cool hair!!

Unfortunately back in the times of Ancient Greece there wasn't an established court system so the practice of seeking ones own revenege was practiced.  I personally don't agree with it, but then again I am off the school of thought that believe that criminals should be dealt punishment not revenge.  These two things are very different.  Revenge is simply a physical reaction to the emotional pain being felt by the victim(s) that solves nothing and creates only more pain and suffering for others.  Sure revenge may make you feel better but what about the innocent loved ones of the criminal?  Do they deserve to suffer for a crime someone else commited? Within society revenge does not work.  There is no order to it.  Different people view different crimes in different ways and think that people should be punished differently because of their views.  What one person considers a crime might be seen as nothing by another.  Just look at the lynching during the civil rights movements of the 60's.  White power organizations lynched African Americans as revenge for "stealing their jobs and money" when it was actually revenge against the color of their skin.  How is that just and right?  Without he, albeit flawed, organization of the criminal justice system the world would be a chaotic place with everyone killing and hurting others simply in the name of revenge.  The very nature of revenge goes against the fundamentals of right and wrong that are supposed to be instilled in us from a very early age. 

I chose this image because it's more abstract than the other ones I found.  The image is at first glance only of the Cyclops.  A closer look reveals a naked man lying in the grass.  To me this hidden image of Odysseus is   symbolic of the trickery that Odysseus uses to first blind the cyclops and then enable him to escape with his men.   This is relevent to The Odyssey because time and time again the trickery and skill of Odysseus is seen and this painting serves as a visual representation of these heroic traits.  The style of the painting lends a dream like and mythical quality to it which fits in well when the subject is a time of gods, goddesses and their magic/miraculous deeds. 

       What jumped out immediately at me about these "fairy tales" is that the ones written by Oates and Jewett were so much less of what I would consider a fairy tale than the others.  The basic plot in Jewett's "A White Heron" is a girl meeting a bird watcher who wants her to take him to the white heron.  There's nothing supernatural about that at all.  In Oates "Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?" a young girl is attacked and murdered by a crazy man, but again no supernatural occurences.  In "Little Red Cap" both child and grandmother survive by being swallowd whole by a wolf, Cinderella has enchanted birds and trees that drop down beautiful dresses, "The Little Mermaid" has magic sea witches and "In The Company of Wolves" werewolves.  All of these are supernatural or non believable occurences, which to me is what qualifies them as truly fairy tale.         Obviously in the Disney remakes of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" things had to be changed in order to reach the target audience of young children.  If these fairy tale beauties didn't win the hearts and hands in marriage of their princes then the whole notion of living "happily ever after" would be thrown out of the window.  It's also a money making scheme.  No parent is going to buy a movie for their small child where girls are cutting off body parts to fit into a shoe or another gir losing her prince to someone else and essentially dying.  Although these may portray a more realistic ending to an unrealistic situation, in this case realism doesn't sell.