Meanings of Overcoming giant and dragon and monstor in literature and art
By:Dr VidaAhmadi(Dana Kamran)
In many literary and artistic works there is a hero who encounters with a giant or dragon or monster and she or he must fight with them and conquer the whole of them to achieve her or his goals.
These giant and monster and dragon are symbols in literature and art.In this short article,I indicate 2 general symbolic meanings of these groups of symbols and then I explain them briefly .These two main groups are as follow
The basic concepts
secondary meanings
In basic meanings there is a monster or dragon and hero destroys it.
But in secondary meanings hero faces with a person or thing that has no dragon's or monstor's appearance but indeed the inner of that enemy is like a devil dragon or monster. Therefor dragon and monstor in these cases are
A) moral vices
B) fears
C) Anxiety
D)wrong thought or belief
I want to clarify it with examples.In so many fairy tales or other kind of literary or artistic works an evil human or a fals belief or wrong thought can be the same dragon or giant that must be defeated.In the conference of the birds written by attar (Iranian mystic poet) limited attitudes of birds toward themselves and life is their monster or dragon or mephisto in faust written by goethe or stepmother and stepsisters in cinderella are other symbols for this meaning.So the shape of this enemy is not important but what is notable is the form of facing with it .this is the case
Basically in all these meanings hero conquers and dragon and monster defeated and destroyed
Also it can be another symbolic meaning for alchemy. hero kills dragon or giant and by this victory her or his dark nigredo finished and her or his Albedo and Rubedo or self developing and actulizing happen.this is the real meaning of gold in alchemy
