1. Fundamental Differences Between Ancient and Modern Life
Organization of Society
Rights and Responsibilities of Individuals
Material Well-Being
Spiritual and Psychological Well-Being

2. Organization of Society
Ancient - Little social mobility. Social status, marital partners, and occupations are chosen by or inherited from parents and therefore determined at birth
Modern – Social status dependent on wealth, which is the reward for achievement valued by others. Therefore social status, marital partners, and occupations for most people are not determined at birth

3. Rights and Responsibilities of Individuals
Ancient – Few or no rights, and not much concern for them. Concern is for responsibility to relatives, communities, overlords, or kings.
Modern – “ the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

4. Material Well-Being
Ancient – Nobility uses wealth to maintain power and insulate themselves from such misfortunes as famine and plague. In addition, the authority of kings is bolstered by the role of religious traditions to discourage such threatening enterprises as science, technology, and trade (Creates a new social class)
Modern – A world of merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and technicians.

5. Spiritual and Psychological Well-Being
Ancient – Little freedom but psychological comfort
Modern – Pursues his own material happiness but often at the expense of his psychological and spiritual well-being

6. Chief Irony of Modern life
The modern world is the only world in which ordinary individuals have ever assumed they all had the right to pursue their own happiness.
Problem is this pursuit has robbed modern man of his sense of identity, purpose, security, worth, and place.

7. Ancient and Modern Literature

8. Ancient

9. 18th & 19th Centuries

10. Modern

11. ANCIENT MODERN Hero is a model of the ideal human type.
Odysseus Beowulf
Hero is tragic. His downfall is due to his own internal character flaws. He arouses terror and pity because such a great man has such a big fall.
Oedipus Creon
Hero is often a pitiful victim or mental patient.
McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Hero is clearly pathetic. He is a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Often he is particularly pitiful.
Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis

12. ANCIENT MODERN
Society is never criticized. For example, warfare is a source of great tragedy in the Iliad, but it wouldn’t have occurred to Homer that a world without war could exist
Society is insane, absurd, pointless
Fahrenheit 451
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Brave New World
1984

13. ANCIENT MODERN
Life basically makes sense. You make mistakes, but can learn from them. That, or your tragedy serves as a lesson for others
Society clearly makes no sense.

14. McMurphy