There are four tools to read myths which are discussed here.

2. Tools for Reading Myths
-Peter Struck
Prepared by
Vaidehi Hariyani
(Research Scholar)
Department of English,MKBU
18th September 2018
PhD Coursework Exam

3. Peter Struck
• Associate Professor -Classical
Studies.
• Instructor in an Online Course
“Greek and Roman Mythology”.
• Created by University of
Pennsylvania.

4. Functionalism
Freud
Interpretation of
Dream
Myths and Rituals
Structuralism

5. • Bronisaw Malinowski (1884 to 1942)
• Delight and entertain us or to give us
the versions or teach us about the
sort of universal structure of the
Cosmos.
• Reassure us that our cultural norms
and our social values are the right
ones.
• So myths serve the function of
legitimatizing.

6. For example:-

7. • Claude Levi-Strauss (1908
to 2009)
• Binary Opposition
• Absence of Something
• Human beings tend to
put the same pairs in
opposition from culture
to culture to culture.

8. For example

9. Freud – Interpretation of Dreams
• Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939).
• The Interpretation of Dreams -1900.
• Example of doctor
• Myths are the dreams of an entire culture.
• Each of us is engaged always in a process of myth-making through our
dreams, and our cultures are, in a way, dreaming as they write their
myths.

10. For example

11. Myths and Rituals
• Emil Durkheim (1858 to 1917) and Jane Harrison (1850 to 1928).
• Collective Effervescence
• Myths and rituals are intimately tied.
• Why do we do this? And when someone steps back and ask that question,
That's when myth rushes in.
• When we see those connections the myth and ritual says, yes, that's
indeed how myths work.
• They're there as the soundtrack for ritual behaviors, strange ritual
behaviors that provoke people trying to invent explanations of them.
• And when they do, they tell stories, and these stories are what you and I
call myth.

12. For example

13. Recap
• Structuralists think they contain hidden messages about the structure
of the human mind.
• Functionalists think that they contain messages about the values that
a culture wants to legitimize to itself.
• Freud thinks that hidden messages inside a myth are always going to
be about just you and me as individuals, developing, working our way
through a developing, the developing of our psychological state.
• Rituals brings Myths into existence.

14. Works Cited:-
• Struck, Peter. Greek and Roman Mythology. Web. University of
Pennsylvania, n.d. 2018. Web
Vaidehi09hariyani@gmail.com

15. Thank you