Helen of Troy

In reading WWI poems with a class on Saturday we came upon some written at Gallipoli, making reference to the legendary Siege of Troy. I was suddenly reminded of this, a bitter jest on female vanity, cherished since my adolescence. I was relieved to discover that, despite not having thought of it for some years, I could still recall it by heart.

“And were you pleased?” they asked of Helen in Hell.

“Pleased?” answered she, “When all Troy’s towers fell,

And dead were Priam’s sons, and lost his throne,

And such a war was fought as none had known,

And even the gods took part, and all because of me alone?

Pleased?

                                                 I should say I was!”

Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)

Kurt Vonnegut makes it simple

I first discovered this hilarious lecturette through one of Maria Popova's posts on the ridiculously addictive literary blog BrainPickings last year, and recently shared it with some students at the end of my first class of the new year on short stories.
The BrainPickings post includes some further examples of these character arc diagrams. For some reason I felt a particularly strong sense of identity with this one of Kafka's Metamorphosis...