“Parasites”: : a film synthesis of a millenary figure

Abstract

In ancient Greece, the word «parasite» referred to high officials in charge of checking the wheat crops. Being a parasite was a big honor, because these beings were considered sacred. Nevertheless, somewhere in time, this figure became disreputated and was adopted by ancient Greek and Latin playwriters to describe comic characters living at the expense of others. This article analyzes the character of the parasite as a metaphor of human nature in the plays of Plautus and Terencius, as in the famous Bong Joon-ho’s movie Parasites. This proposal draws in the postulates of Thomas Hobbes, Jacques Derrida and Michel Serres as they think man having a condition that finds echoes in the experience of the parasites: that of wolves.