A Summary of the Making of Gods and People By Neeloufar Grami In the story of “The Making of Gods and People” by Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, the origins of human beings as well as their path to creation is revealed. In the beginning, Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky, were the only two present in this universe. Thus leading to their first children, which were fiftyheaded and hundred-handed giants (Garfield and Blishen 1). These children caused terror making their father banish them to Tartarus, the underworld darkness.
Similarly, when they bore Cyclopes, which were mountain-sized humans with only one eye, they too were banished into Tartarus. Lastly, they gave birth to Titans, which are giant humans, and which were finally permitted to stay. (1) One of the children, Titan Cronus, the most deceitful and underhanded among the children, killed his own father and as a result took his position in the sky. Additionally, Cronus marries his sister Rhea and together they have numerous children. However, Cronus eats all the children in paranoia that they might repeat what he did to his own father.
During this time, Rhea’s anger towards Cronus builds and so the next time she gave birth, she kept the child, Zeus, for herself and simply tricked Cronus into believing he had swallowed this child as well. With the intention of overthrowing Cronus, she keeps Zeus hidden and together they try to formulate a plan to overthrow Cronus. The plan is set into action when Zeus disguised himself as a cupbearer and gave Cronus poison in place of wine. This poison forces Cronus to throw up all the children he had previously eaten.
Out of fright and anger, Cronus escapes into his fortress and declares war on all gods thus beginning the war between the gods and titans. This war continues for about ten years with no specific days to declare the commencement as well as the end of the war. However, both sides at the time seemed be at an impasse as neither of them was winning or willing to surrender. At least until Zeus remembered being told of certain creatures that had been banished long ago, and he and two of his brothers set out to go find them.
They travelled great distances and faced many obstacles until they reached the everlasting cliffs, where the monsters were being held. There they freed the prisoners and in return for their noble action, the monsters gave each of the brothers a powerful weapon. To Poseidon he gave a trident that can create earthquakes, to Hades he gives the helmet of invisibility and to Zeus he give thunderbolts. With these weapons they win this everlasting war between the gods and titans.
Following the war, almost all the titans were banished, except for the Giant Atlas, certain Tetanesses and Prometheus. Prometheus was often in deep thought as he tried to see what the meaning of everything around him was. During this time, he walked along a river and used some of the clay near it to create miniature figurines of the gods. Then he remembers that he possesses a jar a magic seedlings back in his bedroom and he plants one of those seedlings into each of the clay figures.
Slowly, but surely these figures begin to grow. When they are done growing, they have taken the form of human beings today. Prometheus tries to provide as much as he possible can for his children, but when Zeus gets word of these children, he declares that they must be educated or have fire. However, in defiance of Zeus, Prometheus brings his children fire and teaches them everything he knows about the living and the world around them. That being the case, Zeus only saw it fit to punish Prometheus for going against his commands.
Zeus chained Prometheus to the ice-shrouded mountains and everyday a vulture would eat out hi sliver and by the next day, his liver would have grown back, and this cycle would repeat. Nevertheless, the suffering never broke Prometheus’ sprit because he knew that as he had witnessed twice before, this god would fall just like the others. This punishment did not seem severe enough for Zeus, so to ensure that the Titans do not regain their former status, Zeus forms another plan.
He asks Hephaestus to create a perfectly beautiful woman, Pandora, and gives her as a wife to Prometheus’ brother, Epimetheus. Along with Pandora, Zeus gives them a wedding gift, which is a box that he tells her not to open under any condition. However, the curious grows increasingly within her, until one day, she opens the box and unveils horrid things. In the box were diseases, miseries, sadness, and all the evil there is today. Additionally, in this box, there was hope something that in bestowed in the lives of all humans to make even the w
