Physical Perfection Greek Analysis

In order to understand how the idea of physical perfection comes to be in today's society, we must first analyze Greek culture, where the human body was idolized. In ancient Greece, religion was a prominent part of daily life. The Greeks worshiped several gods, and each of these gods represented a certain aspect of humanity. As a result, the Greeks imagined the gods with human bodies and characteristics, however, they still differed greatly from the normal human. The Greeks depicted the gods as ethereal beings, whose bodies surpassed all. As a result, Greeks became obsessed with physical perfection, especially in men. By working hard to create and maintain a flawless physique, the closer men would be to being viewed as god-like. In comparison …show more content…
Through this misconception, they are in fact harming themselves emotionally. Many of the images presented by society of the human body reveal how society “wants” others to look. By attempting to achieve these exaggerated, overwhelming representations of the human body, men are doomed to fail because these bodies are unrealistic. As a result, the self-esteem of men plummets as they come to understand that they will never achieve what society deems as acceptable. Walker Percy would agree with this in his essay “The Loss of the Creature”, where he gives an example about the Grand Canyon on a postcard. From the postcard, the Grand Canyon appears beautiful, leading us to believe that if we went there and saw it that it would be just as magnificent, yet that’s not the case. We measure things up to images we see and feel dissatisfied if we don't get that anticipated result. Percy states, "The highest point, the term of sightseer's satisfaction, is not the sovereign discovery of the thing before him; it is rather measuring up of the thing to the criterion of the preformed symbolic complex"