Two essays in west Heritage

Essay Guide Questions

Gender and Sexuality:

o What were the roles given to men and women in a society and its literature?

o What qualities were associated with the ideal man and ideal woman?

o How did the expectations, responsibilities and rights of men and women

differ? What explanation, if any, did they provide for the differences?

o What were their attitudes towards sex? What was considered acceptable

and what aspects of sex were restricted by law or custom?

o To what extent were issues of gender, marriage, love and sex intertwined?

Humans and the Physical World:

o How did societies (and individual authors) explain the world around them? o Was the physical world something to be feared? To be manipulated to

their advantage? To be dismissed as unimportant?

o What technologies and technological or scientific advancements are

associated with each society? What were the effects of these technological

advancements?

o How did their cultural, political, religious and social beliefs affect their

architecture and what they constructed?1