Capstone Projects--HE462, Chasing Medusa Author Title Link
Lindsay Bartel We Still Have Something to Prove click Heather Beatty The Medusa Lisa click Fabi Bouthillette Franklin Roosevelt, the Most Badass Man Ever click Gianni DeMichele Pertrification as a Circle of Paradox click Foster Edwards Medusa as Symbol of Fear click Desiree Gonzales Modern Medusa click Julie Guerre-Chaley Should Females Govern the World? click Josh Knickman Medusa's Ambiguity click Allen Lerner Open and Shut: An Analysis of Medusa's Mouth click Erika Macias SWF In Search of Love click Adrian Martin The Christian Martin click Irish McGhee Worshiping Medusa click Noelle Navas Reality IS Perception click Dave Panton Let Me Be Your Hero click Ali Sposato You Always Want What You Can't Have click Seth Tufvesson Perseus the Hero click
We Still Have Something To Prove Lindsay BartelThe Medusa myth provides the topic for this seminar course, and raises within me great concern about the treatment of women by other women. Medusa is raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and is forever left to suffer alone as punishment for her actions. The innocence of Medusa cannot be assessed, as there is little mention of her actions prior to the rape. But the focus of the myth is not on Medusa’s action of being raped, as there is no mention of a punishment for Poseidon. It is only the punishment that Medusa receives as a result of Athena’s aggression that is concentrated on in the myth. But why does Athena punish Medusa for being the victim of a rape? And why is Poseidon not punished for his actions? These are the questions that I am still bothered by at the conclusion of this course. This aggressive nature between women can be traced from Greek mythology through time, and it still rings true in today’s modern society. Women’s inhumanity towards one another throughout time can be explained as their struggle of expressing power.
Athena hates the gorgeous Medusa, and admits through her actions that Medusa threatens her as a temptress. Athena takes on the role of “woman, the heartless bitch” when she turns Medusa’s golden locks to snakes, labeling her as “woman, the slut”. Vivian Gornick creates these titles for women, which genuinely apply to the immortal Athena and Medusa. Gornick makes the argument that regardless of which title, “Woman, the temptress, Woman, the slut, Woman, the heartless bitch— women all make themselves come up against what they most fear and hate in themselves, pulling one another down, down into the pit of themselves” ww.wcwonline.
org/p-commarchivesummer01.html). Putting the label on Medusa allows Athena to rise above her, making herself look and feel better.When Medusa is the victim of a rape in Athena’s temple, she does not come to her side for support, but capitalizes on the opportunity to eliminate the threatening Medusa. This expression of power and threat can be seen when the A&E network retells the myth, which completely changes the tone of the story. “Medusa was a terrible monster who had laid waste to the country. She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Athena, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets to hissing serpents” (http://www.loggia.com/myth/medusa.html). By saying, “dared to vie,” the responsibility is put on Medusa, no longer allowing her to be the innocent victim of a rape. This aggressive act of power by Athena highlights the jealousy present between the two females. In studying The Mirror of Medusa (1983),
Tobin Siebers has identified the importance of the rivalry between Athena and the Gorgon. According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, IV. 779ff), the reason for the dispute lay in Poseidon's rape of Medusa inside the temple of the virgin goddess. The goddess is supposed to have punished Medusa by transforming her face, which therefore made Medusa an innocent victim for the second time. However, another tradition, used by Mallarmé in Les Dieux antiques (1880), stressed a more personal rivalry: Medusa had boasted that she was more beautiful than Athena. Everything points to the fact that the goddess found it necessary to set herself apart from her negative double in order to assert her 'own' identity. Common features are numerous. For example, snakes are the attribute of Athena, as illustrated by the famous statue of Phidias and indicated by certain Orphic poems, which refer to her as 'la Serpentine'. Moreover, the hypnotic stare is one of the features of the goddess 'with blue-green eyes', whose bird is the owl, depicted with an unblinking gaze. Finally, because she has affixed Medusa's head to her shield, in battle or in anger she assumes the terrifying appearance of the monster. Thus, in the Aeneid (11, 171), she expresses her wrath by making flames shoot forth from her eyes. These observations are intended to show that Athena and Medusa are the two indissociable aspects of the same sacred power. (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bogan/medusamyth.htm).
Medusa is seen as a rival, and punished for challenging Athena’s power. Athena is described in The Mirror of the Gorgon, as the
Force of reason, who shut up the shrill
foul Furies in the dungeon of the Parthenon,
led whimpering to the cave they live in still,
beneath the rock your city foundered on:
who, equivocating, taught revenge to sing
(or seem to, or be about to) a kindlier tune:
mind that can make a scheme of anything-
a game, a grid, a system, a mere folder
in the universal file drawer: uncompromising
mediatrix.Athena is held in the most powerful regards. Her strength is immeasurable and her reaction of turning her beauty into serpents was simply to prove that she is the core of all terror and that these powerful beliefs about her are in fact true. Athena felt the need to prove to Medusa that she held more power over Medusa, as she eliminated Medusa as a threat to her beauty and success. The greek text, from Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 2.4.3, explains,
The Gorgon's head he gave to Athena…. Athena inserted the Gorgon's head in the middle of her shield. But it is alleged by some that Medusa was beheaded for Athena's sake; and they say that the Gorgon was fain to match herself with the goddess even in beauty. The act of putting the head of Medusa on her shield was to confirm that she retained the power (http://medusa.plush.org/greek-apol2-4-3.shtml)
Athena’s actions, although cruel and malicious, were simply done in a mode to preserve her stature and affirm that her power would not be jeopardized. However, just because there is a justification for her actions, it does not mean that Athena’s punishment of Medusa was right.
Although these Greek figures maintain an immense amount of power with which they control many people and places, their actions towards one another can be interpreted as immature, which would be expected from the maturity level of an adolescent. These immortal women set the precedent that is followed by women of all ages. The struggle for power among females in society can be observed throughout their entire lives, and traced back to begin at ages as young as twelve and thirteen years old. There are probably issues of threatening situations before that, but the jealousy and power struggle that Athena suffered from seem to really come to light among people once the Middle School years begin.
Rachel Simmons observed the students in the ninth grade classroom, and the students described in bold, matter-of-fact voices that their ‘friends’ are disloyal, untrustworthy, and sneaky:
Girls can turn on you for anything. Girls whisper. They glare at you. Girls are secretive. They destroy you from the inside. Girls are manipulative. There’s an aspect of evil in girls that there isn’t in boys. Girls target you where they know you’re the weakest. Girls do a lot behind each other’s backs. Girls plan and premeditate. With guys you know where you stand. I feel a lot safer with guys (Simmons, 16).
They follow the actions and example of Athena, who stops at no cost to retain her control.
These young girls attempt to define their power in the harshest way. Although these girls are juvenile, they seem to have very definite notions of female behavior, as if they knew first hand the way to use each other to move up the social hierarchy and assert their power over others.
There is a difference between girls and boys regarding their tactics of manipulation. I say girls and boys because it is on the immature level of adolescence that I am focusing. Boys must live up to the reputation of “the Man”. Since the dawn of time, the man has been the provider of the family. He is a symbol of force, strength and incontestable power. In a Discover Magazine report, Robert Sapolesky supports patterns for aggression in young males by saying,
He is honored for activity and dishonored for passivity, which renders them vulnerable to the charge of being a non-man. This pattern is also seen across a wide variety of species, including our closest primate 'relatives.' For example, in all mammalian species (including the human), males are reported to be the more aggressive sex. Among chimpanzees, males have been described as significantly more aggressive than females. (http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/Research/HNatureProposalsArticles/Final1.MenWomenandAggress.html)
In compliance to this reputation, boys cannot carry themselves in the same manner that girls do. Competing men show their power over one another in a physical manner, in a way that “they can just fight and have it be over with” (Simmons, 16).
Examples of men showing their power make up our history through wars, killings and fighting. However, females cannot express themselves in this same manner. The depiction of “a lady” does not include violent acts and physical disobedience. “Gender codes reinforce the socialization of girls and women, socializing them to acquiesce in, support, defend, and cling to the traditional set of social roles, and to enforce conformity on other females as well” (Sapolesky 50). Therefore, other means of declaration were developed in which women could demonstrate their power.
Women may not be able to show their strength in a physical fight, but the power that comes from their eyes is of immeasurable strength. Athena proved her power to Medusa by turning her hair into snakes, and dooming her to a life of misery and loneliness. Medusa was cursed with the power of the hypnotic stare, which turned people to stone. Although Medusa is the only person ever successful in this feat, every woman has been given the strength and desire to turn others to stone. It is known simply as “The Look." Some females referred to it as the ‘dirty look’, others called it ‘mugging’, and still others called it ‘looking at someone crazy.’ Despite these different labels, the definitions and descriptions of who uses it, when it is used, and the consequences of the look are remarkably similar. It conveys disgust or disapproval, and involves eye rolling or a glare, throwing the head back, and scrunching the eyes. The Look is meant to stop people in their tracks, making them freeze as if they were turned to stone. It expresses some type of contempt, and is almost always understood by the recipient to contain an underlying negative quality. So although women cannot physically turn others to stone, the paralyzing effects of their glare communicates their emotion, power and status as if they were turned to stone.
Through an informal survey of the females at the Academy, I confirmed that The Look is well known and often used by women who feel the need to authenticate their status in a situation. The documentation from these female Midshipmen cover all realms of aggression, talking with the victims in some situations and the aggressors at other times. The survey consisted of a few questions, such as:- Have you ever been witness to female acts of aggression?
- Were you the victim or the aggressor in the situation?
- What was the situation that made you act or receive the treatment that
you did?
- What do you think were the intentions behind the actions of the aggressor?
- How did you feel after? How do you think the other party involved felt?
- Do you see this treatment only prevalent in females? Why do you think
we treat each other this way?The results of this questionnaire supported my realizations about the aggressive attitudes of women. These Naval Academy females are the ‘best and brightest’ among the kids in the country, who are thought to have their lives in order and their emotions under control. However, everyone is human, and future Naval Officers are just as susceptible to aggressive acts as the next person. After hearing the results of the interviews, these people showed a noticeable difference in their recollection of the aggressive event. The plebe girls looked back on their ‘bullying days’ as fond memories with smiles on their face. They just attributed their demoralizing actions as “stupid pranks you do in high school. It was just the way we treated those girls.” Popularity was still an important issue in their minds, as their status was justification for the harm they caused in the victim’s life. The plebes were the closest in maturity level and attitude to the young girls that Simmons previously interviewed. As I proceeded to the older participants, a sense of remorse was noticeable in their voice as they spoke of their damaging exploits. However, all the females agreed that their motives were based around jealousy and the need to exercise their power. Every girl that they interacted with posed some type of threat to them, and they all felt it was necessary to “put the girl back in her place” and show her who really had the power. They confirmed their intentions to undermine their victim’s confidence, and were in full agreement with the comment made by Simmons that they wanted to make the girl feel the pain that they sometime felt. They employed all the devices at hand to ensure that their victim felt like “they weren’t worthy," and The Look was often their first move in the attack.
The surprise in the interviewers eyes was noticeable upon the suggestion of linking them to the Medusa Myth, equating their actions to the merciless transformation of Medusa by Athena. Once I put their “high school prank” on the same level of classic Greek myth that carries negative connotation on the surface, the ‘fondness’ of their memory seemed to go sour. The girls did not like being classified as jealous and threatened by their rivals, as it changed the tone of the situation that they so fondly remembered dominating.
The threat that women pose to one another is prevalent in all aspects of life. If a woman feels that she is competing with another for the attention of a man, she will stop at no ends to ensure her victory over the other. The communication of anger is shown primarily through the eyes, which replaces the physical fight that is accepted between boys. Through results of studies and looking into actions of women in history, the truth is seen that the natural instinct of women is not to ban together to build camaraderie after any exposure of threat. The slightest bit of adversity is taken to their advantage to further harm one another as much as possible. All mortal and immortal women demonstrate the need to have control over other women. Poseidon’s rape of Medusa was Athena’s opportunity to convey her power over Medusa by punishing her. A spiteful nature is rooted in all females, just as all males possess at some time the desire to fight. The words in the Poems for the Stone Lady, from the poem,Love, Very Well You Notice How This Woman, capitalize on the cold nature of women, describing that ”she was more cruelty than she was woman,/ so that her heart, no more a heart of a woman,/ is that of some wild beast, hateful and cold;” This emotion of anger and malevolence is experienced first in the younger immature years of our lives, but carries through as situations arise to be the relied upon method of conflict and expression.
It is not until recently that this aggressive nature in females has been publicly addressed in books and courses, and with more discussion of the problem, women’s actions can be understood. Athena’s punishment for Medusa may not have fit the crime she committed. She went beyond the appropriate actions to show the power she held over Medusa. Females’ actions often go beyond what is reasonable because they feel the need to eliminate their threat.
When we can agree that nice girls get really angry, and that good girls are sometimes quite bad, we will have plowed the social desert between ‘nice’ and ‘bitch’. When we have built a positive vocabulary for girls to tell each other their truths, more girls will raise their voices. They will pose and answer their own questions and solve their own mysteries of relationships. (Simmons, 270).
By giving women the ability to speak their feelings, the aggression built up within women will reduce to a minimum, and the future Athena’s will not have to condemn the Medusa’s of the world to a life of misery just to show the power they feel the need to possess.
“The Medusa Lisa” Heather BeattyThe Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, has been dubbed the most recognized painting in all of history, and yet, it is perhaps also the most mysterious (Encl A). It is famous throughout the world, throughout the centuries, and throughout humanity. It has been studied, analyzed and pondered; yet no one really understands the Mona Lisa. No one knows, nor can ever know, the background behind her story. Historians do not know who she is or where she came from or why Leonardo da Vinci chose to paint her. Was she someone special to him? Did he know her or was he hired to paint her? No one knows for sure. Still, people from every walk of life are drawn to her. She is legendary in the art world and also a common household name. It is an amazing feat that a simple likeness of a young woman, similar to thousands of other portraits, can become so undeniably famous. She possesses an alluring, mysterious quality that draws viewers in to marvel at her. Her calm gaze and serene smile seem to suggest a hidden, even more attractive quality than her physical features. This fascination is not unlike the one found in the story of Medusa. Medusa’s infamous stony stare and gaping mouth have captivated both demi-gods and humans in mythology and literature for centuries, resulting in a fascination with her in the real world as well. Both the Mona Lisa and Medusa possess an indefinable and irresistible quality that has made them immortal, since people for centuries recognize and are drawn to their images. By considering the Mona Lisa in terms of Medusa, the archetypal femme fatale, the Mona Lisa can be better understood, and at least one explanation of the Gioconda can be developed. The two women encompass many similar qualities that are also evident in the femme fatale, which rules Western cultures’ view of woman today. Such attributes include their entrancing gaze, tempting mouths, and exquisite sexuality. Both the Mona Lisa and the Medusa have endured for centuries because of their alluring qualities that represent the archetypal woman as she has developed over the centuries. This idea still exists in Western culture today as the femme fatale.
Both Medusa and the Mona Lisa seem to possess an enchantment over humans, especially men, that results in an undying fascination with their images. They are created in dualities that make them perfect examples of the femme fatale. The femme fatale is the figure who is dangerous yet appealing to the traditional male in Western culture. She is powerful and feminine—in her extreme beauty she holds the power to petrify viewers, either literally turning them to stone in the case of Medusa or frightening them as the Mona Lisa does. She is tempting yet entirely inaccessible. She is the ideal woman whom men yearn to obtain; yet they cannot since she does not exist. In her later development after the fourth century B.C., when she began to tempt as well as simply fright viewers, ala the monstrous Gorgon, Medusa is certainly the image of the femme fatale. She is beautiful and tempting to men, yet her gaze is deadly to them. She tempted Poseidon so badly with her innocent beauty that he lost control and raped her in the temple of Athena. Men are attracted to her despite her power to turn them to stone and end their existence. She is horrifying and powerful, but the idea of her is too intriguing to ignore, and curiosity wins out.
The Mona Lisa holds the same power of petrifaction of her onlookers, although in a less tangible sense. She too is a femme fatale in that she captivates her viewers only to lead them into a trap. She is beautiful and amazing, and viewers become entranced with the idea of her only to realize later that she is not real. She has the power to turn audiences to stone through her alluring features, and then the fatality occurs when they realize she is the femme fatale—completely inaccessible to them.
Medusa’s fatal beauty is also evident in that she must be observed through a medium if the viewer wishes to live through the experience. Men have found resourceful ways to get a glimpse of the Gorgon through reflective mediums such as a shield, water, or mirrors. Certainly Perseus could not have slain Medusa without the shield of Athena that he used to see her reflection so that he could decapitate her. In Rossetti’s poem, "Aspecta Medusa," even Andromeda “Hanker’d each day to the Gorgon’s head: / Till o’er a fount he held it, bade her lean, /And mirror’d in the wave was safely seen” (Rossetti 1). Andromeda’s experience in viewing the Medusa head is also depicted in a painting by Edward Burnes-Jones entitled “The Baleful Head” (Encl B). She, too, yearned to look upon the forbidden Medusa, and was only able to satisfy her need by using another medium through which to view the gorgon’s head.
Similarly, the Mona Lisa can only ever be viewed through a medium. She has and will always be a painting—oil on canvas. When she was alive she was not famous; nor did she possess the famous mysterious air of attraction that she holds today. Only when she became known through paint and canvas did she become the illustrious Mona Lisa. Her slight, evasive smile and following gaze have been made eternal through da Vinci’s painting, and she leaves much more for viewers to speculate about than she ever could have in life. A large part of her intrigue lies in the fact that she is eternally unattainable. She will always be the same young, beautiful girl with the mysterious expression that allures viewers. No one will ever get to know her and discover her flaws and imperfections. There will never be any historical evidence to supplement da Vinci’s painting. Thus she has been immortalized as a beautiful, young, and tempting woman. The modern cliché, “the grass is always greener on the other side,” suggests the same idea in more colloquial terms. Humans always seem to want what they cannot have, largely because they glorify a flawless objective, and they have no evidence against that perfect mental image. A dreamer simply has not been exposed to the imperfections of his goal (the goal could be a relationship, a job, a college, virtually anything), so the imagined good qualities fill the mind and the bad ones appear non-existent. Both the Mona Lisa and Medusa exist as femme fatale figures, in that they survive in the idealism of art, and no one can ever discover their flaws, which in turn makes them fatal by creating a trap for the viewer. Both the flaws of actual women are fatal to him as well as the inaccessibility of what he believes is the ideal woman in Medusa or the Mona Lisa.
Common physical features emerge as symbols of the femme fatale, and the woman of Western culture, in both the La Gioconda and the Gorgon. One of the most prominent features of each is her gaze. Eyes are an important feature of the femme fatale. Similarly, in Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head, Martin is obsessed with women’s eyes. He is drawn to the “warm, possessive, and coquettish” gaze he shares with his mistress after whom he lusts (Murdoch, 9). Later another woman, Honor Klein, also entrances Martin with her eyes, yet in a different way. Her “narrow dark eyes” hold much more of the femme fatale threat as they are “shot with red” and possessed “something animal-like and repellant in [her] glistening stare” (Murdoch 55-7). The evil that comes forth from Honor Klein’s eyes represents the evil or fatal part of the femme fatale. Medusa, however, is even more treacherous; her stare has proven fatal. The basic mythological explanation is that Medusa’s eyes will turn anyone to stone who catches her glance—a deadly power. However, Medusa’s eyes represent much more than just the physical power to turn men to stone. Catching the stare of Medusa may indeed turn one to stone, but it is not so literal as being transformed into a statue, never to experience physical movement again. It also captivates the viewer, forcing him to stop and to consider her. The Mona Lisa’s gaze is similar. She has never been accused of actually turning an audience to stone, yet an odd transformation does take place when one looks upon her. Both women impose an intangible but threatening power upon those who look at them. Yet, viewers still choose to look at them. They fascinate and capture the attention of audiences, despite the knowledge that looking at them could be frightfully dangerous.
The unique similarity between the pair’s eyes is that they intimidate spectators, but unlike most works of art they seem to be looking back at the viewer. Having art stare at an onlooker is an extremely threatening idea, as it is a complete role reversal. In art, the subject is objectified and viewers seem generally comfortable with that idea. Audiences are not accustomed to the painting having any power because, normally, as viewer’s, they are in complete control. You look at what you want to see, and when you are finished you look away. Or, if a work displeases you, you do not even have to look at all. The viewer is in complete control of the situation. He or she can examine the art in detail and up close while feeling safe. No one is scrutinizing the viewer as intimately in return; he or she is simply looking at an object. Although the Gioconda and Medusa are captured and contained within the frame of art, they still manage to rob the viewers of this sense of invulnerability. They return the stare. Simultaneously, they remain objectified and petrified, holding true the ideal, eternal woman.
The ultimate female figure resembles a Madonna figure—pure, good, beautiful and desired. In fact, the Mona Lisa was originally the “‘Madonna Lisa,’ [which equates to] ‘Madame Lisa,’ [which] soon got nicknamed down to ‘Monna,’ and then, much later, further down to ‘Mona’” (Gopnik 2). Thus the Mona Lisa’s original name suggested the pure and attractive qualities of the Madonna, the Virgin Mary. The Mona Lisa and Medusa hold all these virtues, yet, the difference from the typical Madonna lies in the power of their frozen stance because these women are able to turn the tables and scrutinize the viewer. The Medusa is the more dangerous since the viewer requires another medium to feel secure in that he or she will not transform into a stony lifeless figure as well. But even farther, the element of narcissism exists there as well. How can she look back at you? Her ability to see back destroys any sense of what is real and thus petrifies her viewers. A real painting could not see.
Is this a contradiction? Critics consider realistic paintings to be those that resemble humans or life as closely as possible. The Mona Lisa does just that, yet she makes us uncomfortable because she is actually real only as paint on canvas. She cannot possibly see into this world. Can she? If she could, what would she see? That, too, petrifies viewers—the idea that she is studying them as closely as they study her and can see into what is real about them. Steven Z. Levine calls this a “vain pursuit of a mobile reflection” (Levine 102). He goes on to explain how people search for a reflection of themselves in art, and their view is constantly being construed by changing “frames of interpretation” such as time, intentions, meanings, circumstances, etc. The most horrifying part of viewing art is the sudden realization, occurring after hours of petrification, studying and pondering, that you suddenly, “with blinding tears in [your] eyes, see that Nothing’s there…then efface the dual foils of the Imaginary and the Symbolic, and find ourselves for once in the fatal face of the Real” (Levine 102). Thus, the Medusa and the Mona Lisa rob viewers of the escape into fantasy that is usually achieved by looking at artwork. You can no longer drift away into a visionary world and forget about one’s own faults and insufficiencies because these women look back at you and force you into truth—a truth that crushes the hopes of an ideal world/relationship/job/etc. They are the femme fatale; they draw you in only to remain unattainable and leave you surrounded with a world of imperfection. This apparent contradiction is what the femme fatale is about—she appears to be the image of perfection; however, this perception is only a manifestation of the viewer’s own hopes for perfection. If one could get to know her, he would discover she is not at all perfect. She only appears so from a distance. But the Mona Lisa and the Medusa do not even allow the viewer to get this far in the process. By staring back at the audience, they force it to see that, no matter what, it is living in a world of deficiencies.
Another vivid feature in both the Mona Lisa and Medusa that represents their female attractiveness is their mouths. Mouths, similar to eyes, are an attractive feature in women in Western culture. Another modern cliché states, “The first thing I noticed was his/her smile.” Also, some of the most stunning, unattainable, and famous female figures of modern times have famous and beautiful smiles. Take for instance Julia Roberts, whose captivating smile has entranced audiences for years. Also, where would Angelina Jolie be without her famous pouty and sexy mouth? These women’s mouths have become almost icons of their beauty and fame. Similarly, Medusa and la Gioconda posses fascinating traits within their mouths that draw the viewer to them, giving them an inexplicable, appealing, and dangerous quality.
The mouth of the Gorgon is visually menacing and poses a threat to onlookers. She is constantly portrayed with an open, gaping mouth that appears to be consuming all that is around, yet releasing evil at the same time. One of the clearest examples of the gaping, evil image of Medusa is depicted in Caravaggio’s shield (Encl C) that shows her wide-open mouth and evil stare threatening with unimaginable evil and horror. The gaping orifice could suggest numerous things to different viewers. For instance, the deep, dark opening could be letting out nameless evils that could be held back if only her mouth would close. The dark orifice seems to bleed out evil and represent her sinister powers.
To Dr. Sigmund Freud, the open lips support his castration theory—a terrifying idea to men. Freud claims that all men inherently fear castration from the time they first view female genitalia and realize women do not have penises. In Freud’s theory the Gorgon’s head represents the female genitalia or lack of a penis (Freud). The open mouth then becomes even more threatening to men, as it could be the instrument of castration they so desperately try to avoid. However, the paradox lies in the fact that although it could be potentially harmful to men, there is still an intense appeal and magnetism about the femme fatale’s beautiful mouth. The attraction is so strong, in fact, that men are willing to put aside their reservations and allow themselves to be drawn to the female in spite of the fear of what may happen. This phenomenon defines the femme fatale: the women who is so appealing that men will put aside all fears in order to attempt to be with her, despite the dangers involved, as in the case of Medusa.
The mouth of La Gioconda presents a far less terrifying, but equally alluring image. Her mouth is closed; however, her lips appear to be either slightly parted or on the brink of leaving each other’s company. She does not appear ominous but instead enigmatic and aloof, again suggesting her feminine inaccessibility. Her smile seems to imply that she knows something we do not and is even slightly smug about it. This specific expression has even been termed a “Mona Lisa smile” in today’s culture. For instance, in a modern poem the phrase appears: as boyfriend and girlfriend fight, the female is described as wearing “a 15 cent Mona Lisa smile on her face” (Bukowski ll 36-7).
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of la Gioconda’s smile, however, is the way it escapes the viewer when he or she looks at it. Upon first glance at the Mona Lisa she appears to have a slight smile. But, when you look directly at her it fades, and you realize she is not smiling at all. Look away and the sequence will happen over and over again. Is she smiling or not? The Italians had a name for the phenomenon when the painting was born—sfumato. Sfumato, by definition, means “blurry, ambiguous, and up to the imagination” (Blakeslee 1). Italian critics seemed to believe that the Mona Lisa is doing whatever the individual’s imagination wants her to do. Each viewer reacts differently to the ambiguity of her features, making it impossible to create a set definition of the painting. If you prefer her to smile, she does. If your mood is darker, then she will not smile for you, according to the Italian’s theory. However, more recently, Dr. Margaret Livingston, a Harvard Neuroscientist, developed a more concrete and scientific explanation for the elusive smile that haunts Mona Lisa’s lips:
…An individual’s center of gaze is focused on Mona Lisa’s eyes with less accurate peripheral vision on her mouth. This focus picks up shadows from the Mona Lisa’s cheekbones, which suggests a curvature of a smile, but when the viewer’s eyes then shift to her mouth, the shadows of her mouth elude the viewer. The smile appears present and then gone because of the visual processing. In particular, that of the peripheral area surrounding the fovea, where individuals see black and white, motion and shadows. Therefore, Mona Lisa’s smile is the outcome of one’s peripheral vision based on the facial contours (Blakeslee 1).
Whatever the reason for her ambiguous smile, the fleeting nature of it adds to her unobtainable and mesmerizing charm of ‘woman.’ When you look away from her lips, the smile appears again and draws you back to her. The psychological effect is a paradox—attraction to something that is gone when you try to observe it directly, so it immediately becomes more attractive in the psyche. The absence or loss of the smile is more enthralling then actually seeing the lips themselves. Thus, the perfect woman, the dangerous and beautiful femme fatale, is built up again in the mind because she is so fleeting that no one can actually view what is really there. The idea of a more appealing woman gives the viewer something for which to strive in his imagination, because the notion of her is smiling mouth is more appealing than her actual painted mouth. Both the Italians’ theory and Dr. Livingston’s suggest that the secret to the mysterious smile lies within the psyche of the viewer. People, especially men, react differently to her features, thus explaining the different interpretations of her smile. Yet no matter what the interpretation, even in the case of Freud’s horrifying castration complex, the enigmatic smile lures audiences in because she is the archetypal, dangerous woman whom people seek.
One scholar, Robert A. Baron, has gone so far as to link the Mona Lisa’s smile to the mouth of Medusa by analyzing a recreation of the portrait with a wide, gaping mouth in place of the tempting smile (Encl D). Additionally, the portrait has been printed as a mirror image—la Gioconda faces the viewer’s right side instead of the left. In explaining the disturbed portrait, Baron states:
The creator of this image, clearly fusing two icons, has taken the image of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa—understood universally as the epitome of aesthetic transformation, purposefully reversing the image as testimony to the last image that the gorgon saw. In a word, the artist has created a double-edged metaphor of the artistic process, which on one level fixes reality into something still and immutable, and on the other forces the observer, qua Medusa, to confront him-or herself (Baron 3).
By directly connecting the two iconic female figures, the creator of the image is displaying how the Mona Lisa and Medusa relate. The mouth is clearly an important feature by which both women are recognized. Medusa is more noticeably threatening and dangerous, yet in a more perverse way very attractive. The Mona Lisa’s mouth is more visibly alluring and attractive and much less terrifying on the surface. Yet, these women both appeal to viewers and terrorize them equally. The variation depends on which qualities are more visibly displayed in each. A melting ofthe dualities of Medusa and the Mona Lisa into one image, “the Medusa Lisa,” shows that the women are both highly attractive and extremely fatal.
The other concept that the “Medusa Lisa” can explain is the idea of a composite woman—or the archetypal ‘woman’ of Western culture. Perhaps the ideal woman does not exist—she never has and she never will. This idyllic image is just a composite image created in the male psyche. By compiling all the favorable qualities that males find in different into one woman, they thus create an “ideal woman” who only exists in their psyche. This is the femme half of the femme fatale. The fatale part occurs when men realize that this faultless woman does not exist. Thus, the fatal attraction to an icon that is entirely unattainable occurs. For example, in Russell Hoban’s The Medusa Frequency, Herman Orff falls in love with an idea of a woman that he has created out of his experiences with many women throughout his life. The women include paintings he has seen, women in literature he has read, and women he has actually met. The result for Herman, too, is fatal. He spends his life hunting endlessly for the woman he has envisioned and ends up alone, disillusioned from his exhausting searches for the archetypal woman (Hoban). However, the image discussed in Baron’s essay deals with the same issue—it meshes together features of both Medusa and Mona Lisa, two female icons, in order to create an image of classic woman.
The final glaring similarity between Medusa and la Gioconda is the underlying tone of sexuality present in both of their images. Their fascinating eyes and their tempting mouths ooze with sexual desires. The mystery and enigma surrounding them also contributes to the sexual aura of the women. Sex has been a theme in almost every work written concerning Medusa. In The Gift of the Gorgon the couple’s sex life is displayed for us to analyze (Shaffer). In Chimera, all three of the novellas focus on sex and sexual issues (Barth). Similar topics arise in A Severed Head and in various poems involving Medusa. Medusa holds a disturbing sexual appeal; thus the issue of Medusa and sex cannot simply be avoided.
Before her rape in the temple of Athena, Medusa was an extremely beautiful creature, with long flowing hair that tempted Poseidon so much that he could not resist sexual intercourse with her. The descriptions of her before the rape are easy to understand because they conform to the universal conception of beauty. However, after her rape, Athena punished her by making her a horrifying monster with snakes for hair and the power to turn men to stone if they looked upon her. This new version of Medusa is harder to accept as beautiful, yet she still holds the appeal to men, and she continues to do so through artwork today. The threat that she poses by turning men to stone, or by castration, or whatever evil power she possess, seems to tempt men even more. Why? The exhilaration of doing something dangerous or forbidden is even more attractive to humans than a conventionally beautiful woman who is ‘safe.’ The satisfaction of overcoming a precarious risk to achieve the goal becomes even more alluring than the girl herself and this exact notion defines the girl as the femme fatale.
Mona Lisa’s sex appeal, in contrast, is far less threatening than that of Medusa. She is described as containing a “sphinx-like sex appeal” (Gopnik 4) that suggests a more traditional attraction, which is more overtly engaging than the menacing yet sexy charm of Medusa. The Mona Lisa has a gentler, kinder type about her, yet she still holds that underlying power that is explicitly clear in Medusa. Looking back to the image of the two women meshed together, the reader can see that, although articulated in dissimilar ways, the Mona Lisa and Medusa are indeed expressing the same sort of sexual power:
One should not fail to mention the erotic dimension of Mona’s open mouth. The gorgon, of course, was a horrific creature, described as having snakes as hair, huge wings and a round ugly face. How curious then that the artist of our advertisement chose to meld a reference to the gorgon with an eroticized rendition of the Mona Lisa. One can only surmise that the artist in this way is exploring the complimentary and contradictory natures of fear and sexual desire, of repulsion and attraction, of all-consuming beauty and repulsive horror (Baron 4). The juxtaposition of the two images again bonds the Mona Lisa and Medusa inextricably, and it demonstrates the similarities in their sexuality.Through a vigilant assessment of both Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the myth of Medusa, one can see that the two are intertwined in so many areas relating to sexual appeal, allure and fascination that they are indeed both excellent representations of woman in Western culture that has emerged from the femme fatale. Both women’s enchanting eyes and magnetic mouths in addition to their sex appeal and complete inaccessibility make them the ultimate “femme fatale” figures. In addition, considering the Mona Lisa in terms of the gorgon allows one to reach at least one feasible explanation for the enigma surrounding the famous work of art that has remained a mystery for centuries—that her appealing qualities which are similar to that of the femme fatale and Medusa have granted them an allure that eternally attracts and tempts audiences worldwide.
Works Cited
Barth, John. Chimera. New York: First Mariner Books, 1972.
Baron, Robert A. “Mona—The Medusa Equation and the Pregnant Mona Lisa.”
http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/MONA38.htm (01 Dec. 2002).Blakeslee, Sandra. “What Is It With Mona Lisa’s Smile? It’s You!” The New York
Times 21 Nov. 2000, sec. F.3.Bukowski, Charles. What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire.
The Viking Press 1999.Burnes-Jones. “The Baleful Head.” 1887.
Caravaggio. “Medusa’s Shield.” Circa 1590.
Da Vinci, Leonardo. “La Gioconda.” Oil on canvas. 1479-1528.
Freud, Sigmund. “Medusa’s Head.” Sexuality and the Psychology of Love. 1922.
Online. http://www.cc.utah.edu/~aga0889/laugh3.html (04 Dec. 2002).Gopnik, Blake. “Mona Lisa’s Little Secret; A Historian Deconstructs the Celebrity
Painting.” The Washington Post 07 Feb. 2002, sec. C.01.Gescheidt, Alfred. “Mona Lisa Revisited.” Greeting card. 1991.
Hoban, Russel. The Medusa Frequency. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.
Levine, Steven Z. “Virtual Narcissus: On the Mirror Stage with Monet, Lacan,
and Me.”American Imago 53.1 (1996): 91-106. 02 Dec. 2002
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v053/53.1levine.htm.Murdoch, Iris. A Severed Head. New York: Penguin, 1961.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Aspecta Medusa." 1870.
Shaffer, Peter. The Gift of the Gorgon. Viking.
Franklin Roosevelt, the Most Badass Man Ever
Fabian Yves BouthilletteWhen you hear “macho,” what do you think of? You probably think of guys that walk around trying to show off their muscles, acting bigger than they really are. For example, that guy in the weight room who wears a shirt two sizes too small to create the illusion of being buff. Maybe that same guy is trying to brag about his latest conquest in a sporting event. Even more likely is that he is trying to brag about a recent conquest over a woman. Comedian Denis Leary finds macho males so amusing that he wrote an entire essay on the subject called Are You Man Enough? Leary opened his essay with the following paragraph:
Here's a cold hard fact that you must now chew and swallow: if you are reading this, you are not macho. Period. Case closed. Real men do not read anything other than GUNS AND AMMO, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, or SHAVED BEAVER (1).
By using Leary’s logic, if you are currently reading this capstone essay, then you too cannot possibly be macho. Now, before you feel insulted, it would probably be wise to define “macho.” Leary says that he “…can only assume that "macho" comes from "machismo," which sounds a hell of a lot like machine. Being macho implies a tough, hard, blocklike approach full of pistons and rods and axles and other big steel-type stuff” (3). Funny, but no. In fact, “macho” is characterized by machismo, but is defined by a “strong sense of masculine pride “or “an exaggerated masculinity” (Merriam-Webster 697). Therefore, when I used the term “macho males” above, I was being redundant.
For the sake of this essay, I would like to also use another definition of machismo found in the tenth edition of the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary issued to me on the very first day of my life as a midshipman. The dictionary says that machismo is “an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength” (697). It is my belief that men in particular are in constant search of “an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength.” This has been true since the beginning of time. To help facilitate men in their venture for machismo, “God” created women. I put God in quotations because “God” is just some guy writing his version of how life came to be. And then some other guy back in ancient Greece created the myth of Medusa. Medusa, a woman so horrifying that she turned any man that looked upon her into stone.
Potentially, Medusa would have turned women into stone as well. However, no woman ever felt the urge or need to go find Medusa. Only men ever undertook the quest to find Medusa and chop off her head. But why did a man (because it was surely a man) invent the myth of Medusa? The man who invented Medusa was simply looking out for his own gender. He felt the need to create an obstacle of monumental proportions for men to overcome in their quest for machismo. That obstacle was, and still is, FEAR.Fear truly is the ultimate obstacle. It was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who once said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" Men truly understand this concept. This is why so many men found it necessary to triumph over Medusa, the ultimate symbol of fear. Even though one man, Perseus, ultimately succeeded in taking out Medusa, fear is something men still try to overcome everyday.
Fear manifests itself in many forms. Young children are afraid of the Boogie Man. Young teenagers are afraid of not being popular. Most of us, however, are afraid of being rejected. This fear of rejection brings me back to the essay Love is Dangerous by my good friend Allen Lerner. This essay, of course, is infamous for being the inspiration for my essay You Want Me to Put My Penis Where? Let us begin with Allen’s thoughts, and the fear of love, as represented by Medusa.John Barth’s interpretations of the myth of Medusa in his book Chimera show that partaking in love is the same as partaking in the ultimate of risks and fears. People put themselves on the line mentally, physically, and morally when believing in love. This makes the fear of rejection very legitimate. There are no guarantees in love, and in love you will find the opportunity for the ultimate of successes, and the ultimate of failures. A man who is successful at love should certainly feel the “exhilarating sense of power” associated with being macho. Maybe, but maybe not.
Two of the important relationships in Chimera are between Shah Zaman and Dunyazade, and Medusa and Perseus. Shah Zaman is guilty of saying one thing to Dunyazade and then having his actions show otherwise. Whether or not we, the readers, and Dunyazade should believe Shah Zaman is trivial by the time we get to the bed scene. By the time Shah Zaman is tied naked to the bed with Dunyazade ready to castrate him, Shah Zaman has realized that there is no way he is going to get Dunyazade to truly understand his mind, nor is there any need to. Shah Zaman only needs to get Dunyazade to trust him. If he can get her to trust him, then she will not castrate him, and then Shah Zaman would have overcome the fear of being castrated and achieved his goal of love with Dunyazade.
Shah Zaman takes on a great risk, perhaps the ultimate risk, by putting his family jewels on the line. In the end, overcoming the fear of castration to then actually put himself at risk is what makes his relationship with Dunyazade work. Shah Zaman played a mental game with Dunyazade, a game that he won at great risk. He achieved machismo by earning “an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength.” However, one must always remember that overcoming the fear of love and castration could never have happened without the existence of a woman, in this case Dunyazade. There would have been no risk without a woman. For this reason, I cannot say with absolute certainty that a man should feel exhilarating power when achieving a victory over a woman. Obviously, the woman holds at least a marginal bit of power, for without her there would be no obstacle to overcome.
In the “Perseid” chapter both Medusa and Perseus take significant risks in the name of love. Medusa must trust that Perseus is her true love, or else she will remain a Gorgon forever. Perseus must trust that as his love for Medusa is true, he will not turn into stone when he looks at her. Medusa puts herself on the line in hopes that she will no longer be a Gorgon. Perseus is putting his life on the line in hopes that he will regain a love that he once had with Andromeda. Remember that in “Perseid,” Perseus is portrayed as a washed-up hero. His love with Andromeda has dwindled greatly. Therefore, Perseus is willing to take great risk (his life) to regain “an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength.” Perseus is very unsure of his love for Medusa. His doubt is portrayed in the following passage:
…Next day she was quieter than usual, and that evening she told me very gently just what you said a while ago: in effect, that I loved her less than she me, and was still bound with half my heart to Andromeda. I wished then I’d had a kibisis for myself, to hide my shame; I swore I did love her, if anyone, as much as I could, not really knowing her and all— (107-108)
Perseus wants to love Medusa with all of his heart, but he is just not convinced that he does; neither is Medusa. Yet, Medusa is willing to take the risk, and finally so is Perseus. Perseus puts his life on the line to regain true love. Shah Zaman did not need to get Dunyazade to understand his true thought process; he only needed to get her to trust him. Perseus too did not need to get Medusa to understand his true thought process; he only needed to get her to trust him. To earn the trust of the women, Perseus and Shah Zaman put their life and penis at risk, respectively. Overcoming fear in the pursuit of love is a difficult and risky task. Love is never certain. Exposing our vulnerabilities is what makes love so exhilarating, like an extreme even where life is at stake and there are few safeties in place to prevent mishap, in love there is much placed in jeopardy and no guarantee made (Lerner 3).
That quote is part of what inspired me to write "You Want me to Put My Penis Where?" However, when I initially wrote that essay, I had it in mind to defend Freud’s castration complex. When I finished the essay and read it to myself for the first time, I realized what I had actually done was show that the fear of castration from oral sex is simply another obstacle for men to overcome and earn machismo. By comparing Shah Zaman and Perseus I compared the fear of castration and death, and made the two out to be very alike. Therefore, overcoming the fear of castration from oral sex is a legitimate way to earn “an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength.”
It is safe to say that most men are drawn to oral sex. But why? Well, some may think that the answer is obvious. It feels great, and gives the receiver a sense of power over who is giving the oral sex. However, the exact opposite is true. It is the giver of the oral sex who is in power. Medusa’s open mouth could be an invitation for a male to receive oral sex from her. Even though Medusa is not aesthetically appealing, the appeal of oral sex still exists. But should a man really trust Medusa with your family jewels? Should a man trust anyone with his family jewels? The answer does not really matter, as most men usually do not pass up the chance for oral sex.It seems very ironic to say that men are trying to gain a sense of power, or machismo, from a woman who is the one with the power when giving oral sex. However, this statement perfectly exemplifies what I am trying to argue when I say that man invented woman in order to create a conflict to overcome. When a woman has power during oral sex, it makes it infinitely more risky for a man to receive oral sex. Therefore, when a man does successfully receive oral sex without being castrated, he has made a huge achievement. Oral sex would not have near the draw that it has now if there was no risk of injury from oral sex.
Medusa does represent both fear and attraction. This is why overcoming Medusa, and everything she represents, is the ultimate of achievements. Man invented Medusa. He did so because it gives him the chance to prove himself, to prove that he is macho, to prove that he is in control when it comes to love. Man relishes the threat of being castrated. Yes, Medusa does provide the fear of getting a penis chopped off (or bit off), but she also provides the excitement of throwing oneself into … an extreme event where life is at stake and there are few safeties in place to prevent mishap… (Lerner 3).
Thus far, I have tried to show that man has a need to overcome conflict. By overcoming conflict, he will prove himself macho. He will lead a more exhilarating life. To maximize the exhilaration, man needed to create great obstacles. Therefore, he created the myth of Medusa. Medusa represents both a great fear and a great attraction. And since fear itself is the greatest fear to overcome, overcoming it constitutes the ultimate of achievements.
Above I mentioned the thrill of being part of an “extreme event.” In today’s pop-culture, extreme sports have become a benchmark for measuring one’s ability to overcome fear. Therefore, by studying extreme athletes, one can better understand what goes through the minds of men, and what was going through the mind of Perseus on his journey to behead Medusa.
An article entitled “The Psychology of High Level Sport: Is it Extreme?” addresses the motivation and risks involved with extreme sports. The authors, J.R. May and E. Slanger point out that the risks of extreme sport are both physical and psychological. Physical risks include illness, injury, and death. Psychological risks include high levels of stress, burnout, and low self worth for not achieving elite goals. Yet, the psychological benefits of extreme sports are significant. They include mastery of an activity of a very high level, excitement, adrenaline rush, feelings of uniqueness, and a sense of accomplishment (May and Slanger).
The authors also believe that the following factors are important to achieving lofty goals: judging self as capable of handling an activity and possessing a desire for mastery. consider Perseus and Shah Zaman again. I would argue that both judged themselves as capable of handling an activity and both possessed a desire for mastery. In both their cases, they desired to master fear, which lead to the mastery of a female, which led to the earning of her love. Also, in both cases, great physical harm was risked. Perseus risked death. However, both earned a sense of accomplishment and probably feelings of uniqueness. By presenting this comparison, I hope it is clear that dealing with love and fear is a dangerous prospect, but the benefits, for many, will outweigh the risks.
An articled entitled “Peak Performance” by Karlene Sugarman presents information on how athletes can achieve peak performance, or what is more commonly known as being “in the zone.” Sugarman lists the following adjectives to describe the feeling of being in the zone: relaxed, confident, completely focused, effortless, automatic, fun, and in control. Would you use any of these words to describe Shah Zaman or Perseus? I would. These two men, in the face of extreme peril, somehow managed to stay relaxed and focused. Consider the following passage:
“I have it! Come sit here beside me. Please, do as I say! Now lay that razor’s edge exactly where you were going to put it before; then you can make your move before any marksman can draw and release. You’ll have to hold me in your other hand; I’ve gone limp with alarm.”
Dunyazade wept.
“Come,” the King insisted: “it’s the only way you’ll be convinced I’m serious. No, I mean right up against it, so that you could do your trick in half a second. Whew, that gooseflesh isn’t faked! What a situation! Now look here: even this advantage gripes you, I suppose, since it was given instead of taken: the male still leading the female, et cetera. No help for that just now. Besides, between any two people, you know—what I mean, it’s not the patriarchy that makes you take the passive role with your sister, for example. Never mind that. See me sweat! Now, then: I agree with that Genie of yours in the matter of priorities, and I entreat you not only to permit me to tell you a story, but to make love with me first.”
Dunyazade shut her eyes and whipped her head from side to side.
“As you wish,” said the King. “I’d never force you, as you’ll understand if you’ll hear my story. Shall I tell it?”
Dunyazade moved her head indifferently.
“More tightly. Careful with that razor!”
“Can’t you make it go down?” the girl asked thickly. “It’s obscene. And distracting. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Not more distracting than your little breasts, or your little fingers…No, please, I insist you keep hold of your advantage! My story’s short, I promise, and I’m at your mercy. So: (Barth 41-42)Wow. Who is in control in that passage? The guy who is about to get his penis chopped off? Or is it Dunyazade, the woman about to do the chopping. I think it is fair to say that Shah Zaman possess some of the traits of an athlete in the zone, specifically, relaxed and confident.
In Shah Zaman and Perseus, we clearly have two people possessing machismo. According to Karlene Sugarman, they have the traits of a very mentally trained athlete. According to J.R May and E. Slanger, they both understood the risks of performing at a high level and reaped the benefits. By today’s standards, Shah Zaman and Perseus would be two of the most macho guys around. But what good is it to be macho in today’s world? I will refer back to Denis Leary to explain what has happened to the perception of machismo:
I think the death of macho is easily located on a very recent map. Sometime in the late '70s-right around the time the Village People released "Macho Man" and Barry Manilow sang "Copacabana" and Robby Benson was mewling his way into the hearts of teenage ultra-virgin, men made a serious mistake. We started TALKING to each other. We stopped punching each other and began discussing why we wanted to punch each other. I'll bet my right nut that if I had done some research, I would have found a dramatic decline in facial cuts and brain contusions starting in 1977. Now we're supposed to be sensitive. We are supposed to share our feelings and cry at funerals and care about our hair. We're, in short, supposed to be women. Hello, my name is Shirley. Touch me in the morning (6).
Actually, what Denis Leary has to say is almost true. He obviously seems upset about the disappearance of the traditional macho definition, but it is probably for the better. Nonetheless, I believe I have an acceptable alternative to being called macho that Perseus and Shah Zaman would most certainly accept. They are really “heroes.” There is a definite tie between machismo and heroism. In fact, I believe it is impossible to be a hero without being macho. And it is impossible to be macho without many of the traits that it takes to be an extreme athlete.
But ultimately, what makes a hero a hero? A hero must have great courage, and is admired for his great accomplishments. Therefore, a hero needs a goal that is difficult to attain, and takes great courage to attain. The Motivation to Climb, an online book by Howard Peel addresses how to define a hero, and ties heroism with machismo.
Peel wonders why people climb at all. In his studies, he finds that many climb because they are simply inspired by the idea of reaching a given summit (Chapter 1). He points out that many people who often do not associate themselves with climbing will undertake the task of climbing Mount Everest just to prove something to themselves.Modern commercial expeditions market the ascent of many mountains as being just another experience to be purchased along with any number of other 'extreme' experiences from running with the bulls in Pamplona to going powder skiing in Colorado. Others are drawn to climb a mountain such as Everest because they have been inspired by the writings of others, the mythology surrounding the peak, a desire to experience at first hand what climbing such a peak is like or a need to assert themselves in the their own eyes and the eyes of others. It would appear that many 'macho' or 'military' types are particularly motivated by the kudos which is thought to arise from having climbed a notable peak. It might be argued that such individuals are attracted to the idea that climbers are not only determined, physically strong, 'good team players' but at heart they are, in a sense, 'heroes' in the traditional mould (Chapter 1).
With wars not occurring on a regular basis these days, and the days of chivalry long gone, it truly is difficult to find heroes. However, Peel manages to do so in mountain climbers. Notice, Peel believes that “macho” types are drawn to climbing mountains as they will receive kudos for doing so. He then says that the kudos they receive will lead to their being labeled as heroes “in the traditional mould.” The absence of war means that there is an absence of opportunity for people to prove themselves heroes. By undertaking difficult tasks, however, people can get themselves labeled as heroes in the modern world.
The modern definition of a hero, according to Peel, is a person who stands alone. I never considered that when thinking of Perseus or Shah Zaman; however, I would be greatly mistaken in saying that Perseus stood alone. Perseus’ need for help is an important issue that needs to be addressed.
So far, I have established that to be macho or to be a hero you need some kind of difficult task to overcome. Therefore, man created the myth of Medusa. Medusa provides the ultimate of tasks to overcome as she represents both fear of death and fear of love. When Perseus beheads her, he overcomes both fears. However, he does not do so without help. For some reason, man gave Perseus the assistance of Athena, a woman! Why on earth would man give Perseus the help of a woman when Perseus is trying to establish himself as a hero by overcoming a woman? Athena practically does all the work for Perseus anyhow. She gives him all the tools and the entire gouge on how to go about slaying Medusa.
The simple explanation is to point out that although Athena is a woman, she is still born of a male. In the story, she is born of Zeus in an asexual manner. In real life, a male storyteller creates her. Although her gender is female, she still represents a man as much as her aesthetics show her to be a woman. Interestingly Athena's appearance contrast with that of Medusa, who is often considered to look just as much like a man as like a woman. Her aesthetics are what remain ambiguous, while her personality remains very much that of a female’s. The exact opposite is true for Athena. Athena’s lack of ambiguity in her personality may be an explanation for why she takes the Gorgon’s head and makes it an integral part of her persona by placing it in her aegis.
The beheading of Medusa has been described as a representation of man’s need to separate and categorize and itemize. When you take Medusa’s head away from her, she blatantly looks like a woman by many artists’ accounts. Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa statue comes to mind with the head of Medusa held high and the well-figured (actually attractive) female body of Medusa lying below Perseus’ feet. Therefore, when Athena takes the Gorgon head, she makes herself a complete person with a complete personality, and she incidentally makes Medusa a beautiful woman again. However, Athena with her ambiguous personality could not have been the one to behead Medusa. She needed Perseus, a man with the urge to categorize, to carry out the task for her. Therefore, making Athena, the person that empowers Perseus, a female is a genius move. I have maintained throughout this essay that overcoming fear and love are what give men the ultimate sense of machismo. By showing Athena in need of a man, the creator of the Medusa myth is only contributing to male dominance over females, and therefore, male dominance over love that only enhances the sense of machismo and heroism desired by men.If I were Christian, I might be able to argue that “God,” or some other all powerful sentient being in command of the universe, created woman to serve man’s need for machismo. However, I am not Christian, therefore I must address the myth of Medusa with some reason and logic. It was a plain mortal man who created Medusa. That man, like all other men, was blessed with the overabundance of a certain hormone in his body. That hormone is testosterone. For that simple genetic reason, men find it necessary to beat their chests and prove that they are better than everyone else. Fortunately, that is not the entire truth these days, although Denis Leary would have us believe otherwise.
Yes, men often need a way to prove their worth or superiority to others. Therefore, men do embrace machismo, and try to earn as much of it as they can. Flying down a hill on a skateboard, jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet like Allen Lerner will be doing when he is a Navy SEAL, or climbing Mount Everest will definitely prove that you are “the man.” However, never forget that the only reason these feats are considered macho is that they involve overcoming great fear to put oneself at great risk. Could a woman ever be considered macho for overcoming great fear? Sure, but less women are ever going to put themselves at risk because they simply do not have the testosterone or the desire. Therefore, Medusa is a woman, and her downfall represents an achievement of monumental proportions for the male gender.
Bibliography
Barth, John. Chimera. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972.Leary, D. (2002, December 2). Are You Man Enough?. [Online]. Available: http://www.cataclysm.net/leary.txt
Lerner, Allen. “Love is Dangerous”
May, J.R. and Slanger E. (2002, December 2). The Psychology of High Level Sport: Is it Extreme?. [Online]. Available: http://www.unicaen.fr/unicaen/sfps/pdf/congres2000-symp9.pdf
Peel, H. (2002, December 2). The Motivation to Climb. [Online]. Available: http://www.therockzone.co.uk/therockzone/web-book/mtc1.html
Sugarman, K. (2002, December 2). Peak performance. [Online]. Available: http://www.psywww.com/sports/peak.htm
PETRIFICATION AS A CIRCLE OF PARADOX
Gianni DeMicheleThis title alone will cause you to become petrified! But that is exactly what petrification is: uncomfortable, threatening, ironic, confusing, and an abandonment of security. It seals a certain moment, feeling or desire forever. This is why it is difficult to study petrification: it is difficult to discover what it is that captivates us and leaves us inert. The underlying cause of petrification emerges in romantic love and the resulting desire to maintain the romance forever. Petrification secures that which fascinates us and then eternalizes it.
A petrified individual is, somehow, in his safe haven. In this safe haven of romantic love where he cannot be hurt, he can only admire that which he loves and gives eternal life to, thus perpetually sustaining the romance of the relationship. Romantic love is the central theme of petrification because petrification occurs when one yearns for or loves another. Petrification is repeated, just as romance must be repeated and recreated to keep a relationship thriving. Petrification is protection, a protective state that shields us from our feelings when we do not know how to command them.
Petrification is also troubling to us because it forces us out of a comfortable position and into a threatening one. It is threatening because we realize that we are in awe of something we find beautiful. Naturally, when we find something beautiful, we want to petrify it and preserve it forever. Strangely, petrification is the desire to preserve the one who petrifies you.
Such literary masters as Dante, Petrarch and Shelley confront the issue of petrification in their poetry. Their works display petrification occurring on two levels. First, the observer becomes petrified by his fascination in a woman and he, in turn, petrifies this “fascination” so that he may grant her immortality. Life’s romantic experiences are circles of petrification. One falls in love and becomes petrified; he then petrifies his object of affection; and the object petrifies him and so on. The experience becomes liberating. He falls in love, loses command of his emotions and becomes petrified, and then he petrifies the woman he loves, only to bring her immortal life through some work of art or poetry. Two petrifications exist, the petrification of the observer and the petrification of the subject. Both types of petrification cause the one being petrified to feel alive and give eternal life to the one who petrifies him.Medusa’s story is petrification and therefore she causes her audience to become aware of its own petrification. However, while Medusa invites her researchers to investigate petrification, the Muses are responsible for providing these researchers with the ability to petrify through art, “lyric poetry, epic poetry, and sacred song,” etc (Ovid). Whether one petrifies another through artwork, a picture, or poem or becomes petrified when gazing upon another, petrification brings that object to life or makes that lover feel alive. Petrification and life thrive through one another. Shelley’s response, as noted by Mc Gann, "On The Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci," raises the idea that Medusa’s petrification is a paradox of life and petrification:
This unusual Medusa, . . . is not murderous but humanizing. The fascination she arouses has been translated into a sympathetic process because she is the symbol of . . . a beauty cursed through no fault of her own anywhere evident in the myth, the painting, or the poem. Moreover, she impresses forever upon the sympathetic observer the very essence and source of her dazzling beauty: her image is sculptured on the gazer's soul, which is turned to receptive stone; or, alternatively, the melody of her musical beauty, the painted hues of her exquisitely rendered likeness, both become part of the gazer's now humanized and harmonized life. The stanza asserts, in other words, the transference of the creative power of the imagination from the Medusa to the sympathizing gazer (McGann).
The “gazer” has been petrified, but he has also petrified her because he preserves her in a work of art or literature. He will continue to be petrified by her; she will continue to be petrified by him; and the circle continues.
The poetry of Shelley and Petrarch raises two questions: Have I ever been petrified? Have I ever been in love and desired to give my lover immortality so that I would never be without her? Undeniably, he has been. He asks these questions and then realizes that he has experienced the Medusa gaze. He has experienced the fascination of something beautiful and frightening. His petrification occurs because he cannot take his eyes from the woman he loves and he is frozen by his emotions. It is frightening because he becomes threatened by what he feels. Her beauty may fascinate him or he may fear falling in love with her and finding out that she does not love him. Either way, his raptness causes him to be petrified by her. He is aware that falling in love with her will require him to give a part of himself to her and submit to her, and this is what scares him, rendering him petrified. Still, he is completely in awe of her beauty and feels the need to eternalize her. By petrifying her and transforming her into poetry or a piece of artwork, he is preserving her beauty and petrifying qualities.
Medusa’s petrification surrounds us; representations of petrification appear in movies, magazines, articles, books, art museums, and relationships. These are the different aspects of petrification, as it occurs in different forms. For instance, an author may petrify the one he loves through a poem and, at the same time, humanize her. This is stated by Jerome McGann, who examines the way in which Percy Bysshe Shelley responds to Medusa, “Shelley's fragment on the Medusa's head is, like the ode, an allegory about the prophetic office of the poet and the humanizing power of poetry” (McGann). Perhaps any poet becomes petrified each time he gazes upon the one who fascinates him. The result of this is his need to petrify her in return, so he writes about her, therefore freezing her forever on a page, but giving her, at the same time, eternal, human life. The poem will be read and each time it is read, she is brought to life. And thus, once more, petrification becomes threatening. It is threatening because it forces him to be aware of his feelings. When one is petrified he feels scared, threatened and vibrant all at once. Romantic love is scary, threatening and vibrant. This is why it is safer for the author to write about his object of affection and petrify her instead, so that he may safely gaze upon her from his pages of poetry and not become petrified the way he does when he looks at her directly, in the flesh. Anyone who becomes petrified may be doing so, partially out of caution and the desire to protect oneself. He who is petrified is safe from actually acting on his emotions. He is stiff and stationary. He will not take her in his arms and kiss her and risk being rejected. He stares at her as an object of his affection, as a spectator of her beauty, romantically fantasizing about her, but never pursuing her, all because he feels safer by never taking the chance of being with her. Petrification is protective and preserving. Poetry is the preservation of romantic love.
Poetry and art are representations, petrifications, of the beautiful, the sexual, the intriguing, even the violent. When exploring the beauty and ugliness of Medusa, which causes petrification, it is important to recall the myth that tells how Pegasus was born from Medusa’s blood. His hoof grazed the ground on Helicon, thus giving way to the Muses and sacred fountains. (Ovid online Metamorphoses) Dante’s Rime Petrose: Love, Very Well You Notice How This Woman, is a direct result of the “Muses” and addresses this very issue of romantic petrification. Dante utilizes his poetry to express how he stares at his “Stone Lady” (While, Dante’s “Stone Lady” is akin to Pygmalion’s “Stone Lady,” Pygmalion’s is an actual statue) and becomes petrified because he wants to express his love to her, however, he felt that he could not have her, so he wrote to her:
Tis from her eyes sweet light descends to me
that makes me care no more for other women.
Oh, if she only were a kinder woman to me,
who call her name by night and light!
To serve her anywhere and anytime
Is my sole longing for all length of time. (43-48)Dante is in love with a woman who has petrified him. She will not come to him willingly. He wishes for her to be “kinder” to him and he wishes to “serve” her. She does not come to him, perhaps because she wants to protect herself and not become petrified, just as he does not want to be petrified by her. Dante’s thoughts control him, and thoughts can be one’s enemy, for thoughts will cause a man (or woman) to mentally focus on the one he desires and therefore become physically immobile, stiffened, petrified. Dante’s thoughts force his petrification upon him. He looks at this woman and marvels at her beauty. Therefore, he writes about her in his poetry, petrifying her. He can safely gaze at her from his poetry. He can reread his lines dedicated to her, giving her immortality and perpetually maintaining his love and desire for her, while protecting himself. This paradox of petrification exists here because it is simultaneous. He is scared of the feelings he is experiencing and becomes immobile, but at the same time, he gives eternal life to his petrifying assailant through his poetry. This is also what Shelley’s response to the Medusa myth explores, “the fact of the viewer being turned to stone is caused by the "grace" rather than the "horror" of his lover” (Roberts). Shelley’s responds to Leonardo da Vinci’s Medusa:
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone.
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain.It is Medusa’s “grace,” just as it is the lover’s “grace” which turns the poet (Shelley in this case, but also Dante or Petrarch) into stone, the “viewer/audience becomes the monumental record of the subject's beauty” according to Shelley’s poem (Roberts). Romantic poetry is the result of the poet’s attraction to his lover’s beauty. “Shelley believed in the power of beauty - that it was potentially radical, dangerous” (Roberts). This is why petrification becomes frightening, beauty is powerful and it causes the actual petrification as a result of fascination. As Roberts points out, Shelley’s poem "The Witch of Atlas" also incorporates beauty, love and petrification. Shelley also raises the issue of idolizing those whom we love in a response to his wife, Mary. Doesn’t poetry do just that? Idolize those that cause petrification and whom the poet himself is in love with or in awe of? Indeed it does. The following stanzas from Shelley’s response to Mary and "The Witch of Atlas" represent this idolization and petrification:
If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate
Can shrive you of that sin.-- if sin there be
In love, when it becomes idolatry. (46-8)
For she was beautiful - her beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
No thought of living spirit could abide,
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,
On any object in the world so wide,
On any hope within the circling skies,
But on her form, and in her inmost eyes. (137-44)The “wizard maid’s” beauty is captivating because she turns the “bright world dim,” she freezes and petrifies her surroundings. Shelley also refers to Pygmalion and his statue, Galatea. Pygmalion idolized “perfect beauty” in his own statue that he created and brought to life through his own petrification:
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. (327-28)
Some artist that his skill should never die,
Imagining forth such perfect purity. (335-36)Shelley is suggesting here that beauty causes petrification. Pygmalion created his lover; he petrified her before she was ever animate. Athena breathed life into his statue and Pygmalion then became petrified himself by her beauty and his love for her. Ceaselessly, the circle continues. How we respond to the beauty before us is the effect of petrification. The desire to petrify beauty is also present in Shelley’s poem, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty":
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, (15,16)
Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see
Doubt, chance and mutability. (29-31)
Depart not--lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality. (47-48)Shelley is in awe of a “beautiful spirit” and he does not want this moment of admiration to end, he wants to capture her and keep her forever. He wants to petrify her.
Petrarch also writes about the woman he loves and compares her to Medusa. According to Thérèse Migraine-George, “Laura is also compared to Medusa several times in the Rime sparse, which further stresses Petrarch's painful, both somatic and semantic petrification” (Migraine-George): I will follow the shadow of that sweet laurel/through the burning sun or through the snow,/until the last day closes these eyes. (16-18) He will continue to be petrified by her “until the last day closes these eyes” and the petrification ceases. This poem clearly represents the petrification caused by romantic love and the beauty of an individual:
Never have there been seen such beautiful eyes,
dissolving, melting me as the sun does the snow, (19,21)
I fear I first will change this face and this hair
before she will with pity raise her eyes,
she, my idol sculpted in living laurel, (25-27)He is mesmerized by her beauty and immobile, standing still, “dissolving” and “melting” in his place. He “fears” he “will change this face and this hair” because he wants to immortalize her, however, he may sacrifice some of her beauty if he does so. She is his “idol” which is “sculpted” in this poem and he may never be able to replicate her “perfect” beauty through his own petrification of her.
Migraine-George continues to point out that Petrarch draws a close parallel between his feelings for Laura and the response to Medusa:
I would not go to see her otherwise,
Than to see the face of Medusa,
Which made people become marble. (179.9-11)
Her very shadow turns my heart to ice
And tinges my face with white fear,
But her eyes have the power to turn it to marble (Migraine-George).He is petrifying Laura in his poem; however, she in turn is petrifying him. This is the paradox of petrification. It is a constant circle, a continuous event, even though; petrification itself is the act of rendering one motionless. Petrarch like Dante has admitted his own petrification because of his love for Laura, and he petrifies her in return by writing poetry about her. “Her eyes have the power to turn it to marble,” suggests that she does not leave him pale and featureless, instead, she too turns him into a work of art and gives him life just as he does for her. They share a petrified life. Such as Ovid’s Pygmalion and Galatea shared a petrified life. Pygmalion wanted his statue to come alive, for as real as he made her and felt that she was alive, he wanted her to be physically mobile, not petrified in her ivory. Although his statue was a petrified figure of art, she was real and alive to him. The Pygmalion story offers the representation of petrification through a work of art. Art is a symbol of eternal life, for it freezes and preserves an image of beauty, ugliness or even violence in a single pose. Art is a pictorial representation of life. When one looks upon a piece of artwork, he feels as though there is something alive in that art. Again, the petrification circle is present because a subject has petrified the artist and he in turn, captures that subject in a work of art. An observer then comes along, views the art and is himself petrified as well, by the image.
This is evident in society today. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Glamour place super models on their cover pages. In essence, these men and women are more alive on these pages than they are in real life. Why? Because this is the way that society views them, as inanimate objects representative of beauty, love and vibrant life. We want to preserve them because gazing upon them reminds us of what is beautiful and has petrified us from the beginning. We feel alive. Shelley stated in his "Defence of Poetry": “Poetry is a sword of lightning ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it” (Shelley). This is what happens when we try to petrify something we love! We become consumed by the subject which petrifies us! The result is our own petrification! “ . . . Shelley's Medusa is based upon a struggle which destroys something in order to preserve what is vital. The balance Shelley aims at is destruction and preservation” (McGann). However, we are afraid of the destruction and that is why we strive to preserve it through art, movies, poetry or photographs. Petrification is a way to hold on to something, to “feel” safe and find security in admiring and idolizing that which we love. However, if we don’t petrify it, it will only destroy us! We only begin to feel alive when we love someone or something and naturally, we want to preserve this subject and give it immortality.
Beauty is usually what captivates and motivates the individual who is petrified and the actual petrification, respectively. I’ve often found a relationship between the movie, Great Expectations and the Medusa myth. First, a movie does not petrify an image the way a painting or sculpture may, a movie captures the movement and life of the beautiful object. The camera allows that which is beautiful to be animated while the camera is still, acting as a petrified observer. All the film can do is capture these images and commit them to a video so that these images of beauty can be viewed repeatedly. The “beautiful” is captured and petrified on video, while the viewer will become petrified each time he watches the video. Again, another encircling petrification paradox exists.
In the movie Great Expectations, Finn, a poor, young boy is sent to the wealthy, broken-hearted woman, Ms. Dinsmoor, and meets her niece, Estella. He quickly falls in love with Estella and will love her for the rest of his life. Ms. Dinsmoor laughs at him saying, “She'll only break your heart; it's a fact. And even though I warn you, even though I guarantee you that the girl will only hurt you terribly, you'll still pursue her” (Great Expectations). In the movie, Finn freezes when he first sights Estella and throughout the film, he has the same petrified look when he sees her. Ms. Dinsmoor asks him to draw for her and he draws pictures of Estella. Later in the movie, as an adult, when he and Estella meet again, he asks her if he can draw her and she allows him to. He draws her naked, committing her image to paper. Her image is petrified and so is Finn as he looks at her. Each time they meet he becomes speechless and can barely whisper words to her, but he continues to draw her. His gaze is intently fixed on her in every seen. This is the petrification of love. He is awestruck when he looks at Estella and absolutely in love with her. His fascination with her causes him to be petrified but then he, in turn, petrifies her by committing her image to paper as artwork. His passion for her proves that the vivacious feeling of being alive is present when one is petrified and petrifies another. It is a constant circle. Petrification occurs, the person feels alive; he petrifies his lover and gives her eternal life. The process repeats continuously as one continues to love another.
Medusa’s petrification is about the struggle of submitting to emotional feelings, deciding whether to suppress those feelings or act on them. Petrification is the discovery that a man cannot exist without a woman and a woman cannot exist without a man. It is the harmonious circle of petrification. The story Chimera depicts this in a conversation between Medusa and Perseus. In Chimera, Perseus tells Medusa it is he that discovered her and allowed himself to see her beauty, he tells her, “Now listen and believe me, if there’s any truth in words: it wasn’t you who discovered your beauty to me, but I who finally unveiled it to myself” (Barth 132). Discovering beauty is essentially allowing oneself to become petrified. Because discovering beauty means welcoming the opportunity of falling in love which means opening oneself to the possibility of becoming petrified. This is what Shelley, Dante and Petrarch explore through their poetry. Petrification can be beautiful and it can be deadly, depending on how one reacts to beauty. In art and poetry, it is the birth of life, eternal life and immortality. This is essentially Medusa. She can be beautiful and deadly, in art, literature and life. Medusa is in all of us and around all of us, it just depends on how we “see” her. Perseus took a chance and lifted the veil of love. He found Medusa and the woman he longed to be with under the veil in Chimera. Just as one may be petrified of lifting the veil, the one underneath the veil may be petrified of allowing the veil to be lifted. This is where the balance is reached and the “dynamics of the relationship” occur. Romantic love is about balance, fear, and taking chances. The circle continues on and the petrification is the result. It is about giving and taking, petrifying and setting free. One simply needs to keep his eyes open and look at his Medusa. Petrification is about the response to the struggle for control over one’s emotions and feelings.
Indeed, petrification reminds us that we are alive and feeling. What happens when two people fall in love? Their gazes meet and everything around them disappears, they only see one another. A single moment of petrification exists. However, fear exists, the fear of feeling really alive. Then, when these two lovers are about to kiss for the first time, their breath is absent and they become frozen in place, petrified. These images are what make artwork, pictures and movies fascinating and beautiful to us, they are the illustrations of petrification and the visual aspect of petrification being brought to life.
Petrification reminds us that when we think we have life figured out; something comes along and tells us – You have not yet lived! Life is breathed into you the moment you are petrified. Petrification. How do we define it? Or do we defy it? I believe we do both. It happens to everyone, to both sexes and it happens most times when you do not even realize it is happening. For some, it may be the breathtaking moment when you first lay eyes on someone and realize that it is the person you want to spend the rest of your life beside…for others, it may be the single moment when they realize this relationship cannot go any further. This is what Dante and Petrarch dealt with, their feelings of being in love. It must end now; you must freeze in that specific moment and terminate everything you’ve known to up to that point. Doesn’t the actual moment of petrification depend on when exactly it occurs? Petrification happens when romantic love exists. The moment of awe, falling in love and the moment of being scared of losing that which you have fallen in love with is romantic love. It is the beginning and the end of the relationship. Petrification is the moment when one says yes or no to an engagement, or never tells the person she loves that she has always been in love with him. Or it could simply be choosing a life with someone else or remaining alone, or choosing to only ever merely observe the individual you are in love with.
This is petrification—the constant struggle for power and control over one’s OWN emotions and feelings. According to one professor in the English Department, Mr. Noland, “Discovering literature is discovering your own story about yourself. However according to Hoban, in The Medusa Frequency,"you must be careful because that story will attack you and it will take you over,” it will petrify you. Once one enters the circle of petrification, he cannot leave it. There is truth and discovery in Medusa. That is why she petrifies us. She is the mirror of our own fate. As soon as we open our mouths to speak about her, we are frozen because we realize we are discovering and researching ourselves. We have an essential need and that is to be discovered. Falling in love is discovering life and falling in love is risking petrification. Ultimately, petrification is the result of discovering eternal, beautiful, life filled with love that will be eternalized forever. It is the paradox of being petrified and alive, all at once.
Works Cited
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Barth, John. Chimera. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
Gilbert, Helen. The Serpent's Gaze: Re-working Myths for a Feminist Australian Drama.
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Great Expectations. Dir. Alfonso Cuaron. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow.
The Movie: Great Expectations.
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McGann, Jerome. The Beauty of the Medusa: A Study in Romantic Literary Iconology.
http://www.otal.umd.edu/~eshevlin/mcgann.html. Online. 04 Dec 2002.Migraine-George, Thérèse. Specular Desires: Orpheus and Pygmalion as Aesthetic
Paradigms in Petrarch's Rime sparse.
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Medusa as a Symbol of Fear Foster EdwardsAncient myths perform several functions. Their descriptions of gods and goddesses and their exploits on earth were the basic building blocks for ancient religions. They were a form of entertainment for the ancient Greeks and Romans that created them as well as for the modern societies that came after. The composition of the different stories and their oral delivery to the audience could even be called an art form that pre-dated literature in the illiterate ancient world. Of all of the functions of myths, one of the most interesting is a myth’s ability to portray the human condition and show modern audience how little human beings have changed since ancient times.
The basic truths about humanity that ancient myths explore have remained unchanged since the stories came about. In fact, myths explained the truths about humanity so well that modern art and literature have been hard pressed to find unexplored areas of the human condition to probe and define. In this way, myth appears in modern literature and art that seeks to explain the same basic truths of human existence. These types of myth appear over and over again in different forms, but still maintain their original affiliation with a particular human trait. The story of Medusa is one such myth.
Medusa has been a figure in art since her story was passed down by the Greeks in the 7th and 8th centuries B.C. (Felman 485). From the dark ages to the renaissance, and through to the modern age, the figure of Medusa has been a staple of writers and artists trying to define the human experience. Her appearances over the centuries have taken a multitude of forms using many different mediums, but the basic characteristic of the human experience that her story explains has remained the same. Humanity’s capacity to feel fear is the thread that ties together every conception of the Medusa myth, both ancient and modern.
Like Medusa, fear manifests itself in many different forms. It is such a basic human emotion that its root cause cannot be pinned to a single source. Because the Medusa myth attempts to describe the nature of fear, the true character of Medusa is just as elusive as the emotion itself. Throughout history, her different manifestations tackle different aspects of fear in an attempt to display the various causes of the emotion in their true form. Over the centuries the character of Medusa has grown to embody many of the core causes of human fear including the fear of death, castration, and even the fear of entrapment with no means of escape.
Most of the first conceptions of the Medusa myth manifested themselves in the form of apotropaic art. “Throughout Greek and Roman art the Medusa head - with grinning mouth, staring eyes, and protruding tongue - appears as a protective ornament, whether worn on armor, carved on statues of Athena, or incised on tombstones” (Garber 82). These fearsome masks embody one of the most basic fears of the human condition, the fear of death and the unknown future that death brings. Death is one of the few uncontrollable constants in everyone’s life and the production of apotropaic art that Medusa inspired was an effort on the part of early people to control this ultimate common denominator. The people that created the Medusa myth so feared the unknown world beyond their own that they developed this fearsome character to protect themselves from the evils of the other side.
Medusa’s association with death and the uncontrollable started with the very first versions of her story. In fact, some historians believe that early people’s association of a Medusa-like face with evil spirits and the dead may have given birth to the myth itself. “The object comes first; then the monster is begotten to account for it; then the hero is supplied to account for the slaying of the monster” (qtd. in Garber 83). Interestingly, instead of representing a fear of death that humans have, these masks are supposed to convey this basic human fear onto the spirits that would threaten the life and well being of their owner. Medusa’s association with the fear of death and the unknown in these pieces of art cannot be ignored.
The fear of death and the unknown is certainly one of the most basic forms of fear. Apotropaic art and the different manifestations of the Medusa head latch onto this fear and try to harness it for the protection of the community or the individual. These pieces of artwork may have been the first conceptions of the Medusa myth, but they are certainly not the only side to this many faceted character.
After the art of Greece and Rome was created, the figure of Medusa came more to symbolize the fear humans have in association with relationships and male/female interaction. One such fear that the Medusa myth captures very well is the fear of commitment and, more importantly, the fear of being trapped or confined in a relationship. Medusa’s ability to permanently freeze people into stone statues points to this fear of being trapped forever. A modern work that utilizes the way Medusa embodies the fear of being trapped is The Gift of the Gorgon by Peter Shaffer.
The play highlights the rocky relationship of Edward and Helen Damson. Their marriage is plagued by Edward’s infidelities as well as his obsession with writing plays. His writing comes before everything in his life, including his wife and son. In the play Edward takes the part of an abusive and unfaithful monster who has trapped his wife in their horrible relationship. Like Medusa turning her victims into stone, Edward has made his wife the victim by imprisoning her in a relationship from which there is no escape. The meat of the play describes the horror involved with being trapped in such a relationship while the title reminds the reader that Shaffer’s intention is to relate the marriage of Edward and Helen to the horrific relationship Medusa has with her victims. Again, relationships that refer to the Medusa myth are fearful because their members are permanently and irrevocably trapped. Even when Edward tries to give his victim, Helen, a way out, he fails. His “gift” to her was to be the revenge she takes on him by cutting his body with a razor implanted into a bar of soap. Edward plans that his resulting death by suicide will free his wife from her prison and allow her to live her own life. Edward’s attempt fails simply because Helen continues to live alone under his shadow, still petrified by his power. For Helen there is no way out in the same way that Medusa’s stone victims have no method of escape.
While The Gift of the Gorgon does highlight the human fear of entrapment that the Medusa myth embodies, the end of the play makes an interesting diversion from this type of fear’s general precept. What makes Medusa’s power so frightening is that there is no escape. There is no way out and no way to return to unpetrified life. In The Gift of the Gorgon, the victim of the Gorgon’s power is able to escape in the end. Even though the Gorgon himself fails to unpetrify his victim, Helen is able to reanimate herself by forgiving her husband for his transgressions. The final scene has Edward dancing on his writing desk, taunting his wife from beyond the grave and goading her to write the story that would destroy his fame. When she finally refuses to accept the gift of the gorgon, revenge, she frees herself from her dead husband’s grip and moves from her home to start a new life.
Like Shaffer, Barth tells a story in which Medusa’s victim is eventually free of his curse, but instead of being petrified forever as in a traditional Medusa story or being locked into a hateful relationship as in Shaffer’s version, Barth’s “victim,” Perseus, suffers from age induced impotency. Perseus is tortured by the thought that he will never be the young, vibrant hero he once was. Nevertheless, Perseus believes through the course of the story that he is trapped by his ailment with no means of escape. To Perseus, being impotent and old is quite “an alarming prospect for the nymphed eternity ahead” (Barth 68), referring ironically to his nymphomaniac companion whom Perseus believes to be a nymph. Barth’s wordplay aside, to Perseus impotence and old age are not only alarming, they are unbearable. He is so afraid of his fate that he is willing to risk permanent petrification at the hands of Medusa. Perseus recounts that
“if the man who uncowled her, and on whom she laid her one-shot grace, were her true lover, the two of them would turn ageless as the stars and be together forever. But since she hadn’t known herself a Gorgon before, and couldn’t view herself now, for all she or I could know she might be Gorgon still, and Athene’s restoration a nasty trick. In short, whoever unveiled and kissed her must do so open-eyed, prepared to risk petrifaction forever in a Gorgon’s hug. ‘I’m willing, Perseus,’ (Medusa) told me at the last, ‘but you’d better think it over’” (Barth 107).
Perseus does think it over and decides that living immortally in the stars is worth risking an eternity as a statue. To Perseus, being trapped in his aged body with no means of escape is fearful enough to motivate him to risk everything for the promise of escape. Interestingly, Barth twists the myth around by making his Medusa the means through which a person can escape instead of the instrument of his destruction as is traditionally the case. Nevertheless, Medusa’s association with the fear of being trapped is applicable because Medusa still has the potential to turn Perseus into stone. If Barth had written the story so that Perseus had nothing to fear the moment he looked into the Gorgon’s eyes, then the precept that Medusa is the embodiment of human fear would not fit. Because Barth chooses to give the final scenes of his novella a feeling of risk, the fear of entrapment that Medusa embodies can be counted as one of her fearful attributes that survives even into modern literature.
Still another fearful attribute that Medusa figures employ is the ability to completely mesmerize their audience. Similar to Medusa’s association with the fear of being trapped, a Medusa figure’s ability to mesmerize is fearful because there is nothing her victim can do to defend himself against her charms. Dante says in one of his “Poems for a Stone Lady” that
she slays, and, oh, to no avail can one
withdraw or run from all her mortal blows, wich, as endowed with wings,
reach every man and every armor break;so there is no defense that I may take (Dante 10-14). Dante is obviously one victim of Medusa’s spellbinding gaze. He is powerless to avoid her, and his complete mesmerization causes him endless pain. He says to his Medusa, “Why do you not refrain/from gnawing at my heart, bit after bit” (Dante 24-25) and that “‘If once again (love) lifts his hand, Death will have taken me,/before is blow descends, mercifully” (Dante 50-53). The fate of Dante in his “Rime Petrose” is obviously something to be feared. His complete fixation on his love, his “stone lady,” has caused him constant pain and suffering.
Dante is not the only one mesmerized by Medusa. Burne-Jones too realized the powerful draw the Gorgon has too when he painted “A Baleful Head.” This painting shows Perseus unveiling the head of Medusa in order to show his wife Andromeda the Gorgon’s fearsome features. Andromeda gazes at the reflection in wonder while Perseus looks only at his wife and ensures that she does not look up and see the true Medusa. It must have taken some convincing for Andromeda to have talked her husband into taking such a great risk. If Andromeda were to look up for an instant she would be turned to stone forever. The risk both parties take in the painting proves the unavoidable fascination with Medusa that humans have, but what makes the painting interesting is not the focus on the fascinating powers of Medusa. Instead, the painting is most interesting because Medusa’s power is working on a woman instead of a man. Dante compared a woman to Medusa because he felt that both had a frighteningly powerful ability to mesmerize men. Burne-Jones agrees with Dante in that Medusa has a great power in being able to fixate people’s attention, but he must also believe that it is simply a Medusa figure, not necessarily women, who have the power to mesmerize a person. Andromeda is just as enthralled with the sight of Medusa as any man would be in “A Baleful Head”; therefore, Burne-Jones must believe that Medusa’s potency does not wane when applied to women, but rather that Medusa’s spellbinding power effects everyone equally.
Medusa’s power to instill fear through mesmerization is not the Gorgon’s only attribute that can be transferred between the sexes. The actual image and perception of Medusa can be transferred as well. The image of Medusa as a man is not at all uncommon in sculpture and painting. Caravaggio’s shield aegis is one such example. The apotropaic face he paints points back to Medusa as a symbol of the fear of death and the unknown. The head has all the traditional features of an apotropaic Medusa. It has the glaring eyes, the open mouth and the mass of writhing serpents for hair. What is non-traditional about the Caravaggio are the masculine features he gives to the severed head. The hairy eyebrows, squashed nose, and strong jaw and chin are all male facial features and call into question the gender of this image of Medusa. The face on the shield does not have any feature that is proof of a male face, such as a beard, but the overall impression the view gives is decidedly not feminine.
One image that is less ambiguous than the Caravaggio is the carved Medusa head from Aqua Salis. Its wide, starring eyes, snakes for hair and wings protruding from the top of the head (a symbol of Pegasus who was born from Medusa’s body) confirm that the head is a Celtic version of Medusa. With no doubt as to what the relief is depicting, the full beard that the face sports is all the more interesting. It is obvious that the artist wanted to depict a Medusa with clearly defined male features. I believe these and other artists give Medusa, traditionally a female character, male features in order to call the viewer’s attention to yet another aspect of human fear that Medusa represents.
Medusa is traditionally a female figure. Many studies and pieces of literature have determined that Medusa’s femaleness is rooted in the idea that Medusa is the embodiment of female power. When Medusa is portrayed as a male, her femaleness is called into question. Therefore, the male Medusa is no longer a symbol of female power but rather, enters into the world of the abject. It cannot be defined. When the gender classification of a character is taken away, that character can be defined as castrated. It is neither male nor female. Artist who created the face in Aqua Salis and on Athena’s shield have tapped into society’s unconscious fear of castration by giving their versions of Medusa male features. Freud himself wrote a paper that aligned his theory of castration directly with the Medusa myth.
In his paper Freud proposes that one of the chief fears that humans, specifically men, have is the fear of being castrated. This fear stems from a traumatic event in a boy’s childhood. A precept of modern child psychology is that children go through a stage in which they are completely ego-centric. Only their own experiences matter and they are unable to comprehend that people around them have their own, independent view of the world. Children in this phase of psychological development believe that the experiences of other people end when they leave the child’s presence. The ego-centric child assumes that everyone is like him because his own experiences are the only ones he understands. This belief extends even to physical attributes; therefore male children believe that every person they come in contact with has a penis. When this self-centered view of the world is destroyed, Freud believes that the trauma of the event creates a basic fear in the individual’s unconscious that stays with him throughout his life. For Freud, the castration complex begins at a definitive moment. It occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of the female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother (Freud 1). All men share in the terror of this moment and, therefore, the fear of castration is a societal fear that crosses boundaries of race and nationality. Every man the world over fears castration.
Because myths seek to describe the society which created them, it is not surprising that the cross cultural fear of castration appears in the Medusa myth. In fact, the myth of Medusa applies directly to the unconscious fear of castration according to Freud. Specifically, the decapitated head of Medusa is the source of this unconscious fear. “To decapitate = to castrate. The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something” (Freud 1).
A decapitated head, whether the head of a fearsome Gorgon or just a normal human head, is certainly frightening. However, is it valid to say that a head is frightening because it represents violent death or because it is a symbol of a severed penis? Freud supports his claim that “to decapitate = to castrate” in the context of the Medusa myth by citing the other attributes of the myth that point to his phallocentric conclusion. The first is Medusa’s hair.
The writhing mass of snakes in Medusa’s hair is likened to the public hair surrounding female genitalia, the source of castration anxiety in the first place. The fact that her hair is composed of and entwined with snakes points again to the sexual application of the myth because the long, cylindrical snake is a phallic symbol. The fact that Medusa is in possession of and is able to control so may phalluses only increases the horror felt by men. “A multiplication of penis symbols signifies castration” (Freud 1).
Another aspect of the Medusa myth that Freud latches onto in order to prove his theory is Medusa’s ability to turn her enemies, especially males, into stone. Freud believes that this ability directly correlates with the erection of the penis. However, unlike a mass of snakes in the hair or a severed head, this power that Medusa wields is not an image of castration. Instead, “it offers consolation to the spectator: he is still in possession of a penis, and the stiffening reassures him of the fact” (Freud 1). While not an image of castration, the ability to cause erection points directly to the sexual associations of the myth.
A final detail of the story that Freud cites to support his argument is the issue of display. Medusa’s head is fearful because both Perseus and Athena display the head in order to frighten or petrify their enemies. Freud makes the point that displaying genitalia, especially female genitalia which Medusa’s head signifies, is universally viewed as an apotropaic act. The female genitals are frightening to everyone; therefore Medusa’s head can be used as a weapon to frighten enemies. “What arouses horror in oneself will produce that same effect upon the enemy against whom one is seeking to defend oneself” (Freud 1). The horror of castration that the severed head of Medusa signifies translates to everyone, therefore her display as an apotropaic weapon by Perseus and Athena is valid.
Freud’s point that the Medusa myth symbolizes the fear of castration seems to be valid because of all the additional evidence contained in the myth that supports his argument. However, Freud’s theory concerning the castration complex has a crucial hole. Women are excluded from his theory and are not susceptible to the fear of castration. Therefore, according to Freud, women have no need to fear the Gorgon. Helene Cixous seizes on this apparent hole in her paper “The Laugh of the Medusa.”
Cixous focuses much of her energy in the paper on explaining why women are unable to express themselves. Her main argument is that women cannot communicate effectively because they live in a phallocentric world in which their very existence is characterized by the lack of a penis. She believes that women are incapable of expressing themselves because society is so rooted in the castration complex. Women are left out of this theory therefore they are unable to associate with society.
Women’s inability to express themselves is a major problem according to Cixous. Interestingly, Medusa, the embodiment of the castration complex around which the male world turns, becomes the vehicle for women’s liberation. The male’s major weakness, according to Cixous, is his own fixation on his maleness. “Man has been handed (the) grotesque and scarcely enviable destiny (just imagine) of being reduced to an single idol with clay balls” (Cixous 254). With this weakness in mind, Medusa becomes a weapon to attack male society. In effect, the essence of Medusa’s being and her ability to cause fear on so may levels becomes the feminist’s strength:
Too bad for them (men) if they fall apart upon discovering that women aren’t men, or that the mother doesn’t have one. But isn’t this fear convenient for them? Wouldn’t the worst be, isn’t the worst, in truth, that women aren’t castrated, that they have only to stop listening to the Sirens (for the Sirens were men) for history to change its meaning? You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing. (Cixous 255).
Medusa is laughing at the men because they are afraid of her. Even when the Medusa myth is being used as a weapon, the fear that is basic to her nature is unavoidable.
Myths like the story of Medusa seek to explain some aspect of the human condition. Whether a story created to explain the movement of the sun through the sky or the reason behind the thunderbolt, ancient myths describe and simplify the complex world around them. Medusa is no less a symbolic character than the sun god on his golden chariot. She stands for something just as basic and just as integral to a human’s daily life. Medusa is the mythological symbol of fear. She encompasses and embodies everything about it. Her character, no matter what form it takes, always assumes some aspect of this basic, primal human emotion. Whether standing for the fear of death, castration, or the inability to escape because of mesmerization or petrification the one basic precept behind what Medusa is stays the same. Medusa is the characterization and incarnation of fear.
Works Cited
Aliguieri, Dante. “I Want to Change my Words with so much Harshness.” Reprinted on http://www.italianstudies.org/poetry/st4.htm, Accessed 5DEC
2002.Barth, John. Chimera. New York: Mariner Books, 2001.
Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” New French Feminisms. Ed. Elaine Marks and de Courtivron. New York: Schocken Books, 1998
Feldman, Thalia. “Gorgo and the Origins of Fear.” Arion 4.3 (1965): 385-493.
Freud, Sigmund. "Medusa's Head". Reprinted at http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sgs0889/laugh3.html from 1922 essay. Accessed 5DEC2002.
Garber, Marjorie. Macbeth: The Male Medusa.
Shaffer, Peter. The Gift of the Gorgon.
Modern Medusa Desiree GonzalesAs in all myths and legends, the story of how Medusa became a Gorgon carries with it an uncertainty as to the exact events that occurred. Over the years, authors have written and rewritten the stories; some staying true to the tale as it was heard, others taking the liberty to add in their own interpretations and world view depending on the issues within their contemporary society. The way the Medusa story has been manipulated throughout history has produced many themes which have proven to manifest themselves even up to present day. Each generation takes a theme and twists it depending on the cultural particularities of their time. In a strange way, it is similar to the snakes on Medusa’s head. Each snake writhes and moves in a different direction, taking on new forms and shapes . . . but it is still the same snake. In the same way, the themes take on new forms and meaning with each generation, but at their core, they remain the same theme. Most can look at the Medusa story and note the evidence of how women were treated as second-hand; to take that observation further, of how mortals were treated as second-hand to the gods. Just as most can note that evidence, most can also note of how that treatment was wrong; especially according to the politically correct standards we hold ourselves to today. However, though the theme may change in form or shape, it still remains the same theme. In our present day society, we do not hesitate to congratulate ourselves on the progress we have made concerning those themes. We recognize that there is still room for improvement, but overall, we are mostly satisfied with our position. But have those themes that would be considered ‘wrong’ really disappeared or been lessened? No, they have simply taken on new forms and shapes that keep them consistent with the present cultural particularities . . . and they remain equally as dangerous.
One of the most controversial aspects of the Medusa story (as depicted in Ovid’s Metamorphosis) lies in the Temple of Athena. Medusa was a beautiful woman. Poseidon was a male who happened to be a god. Though it was most likely not thought of in the same terms then, the question remains, was she raped? Was Medusa simply an innocent victim of a lustful god . . . or was she a temptress who purposely defamed a Temple? Perhaps she possessed qualities of both innocent victim AND temptress. Each of these scenarios creates a dozen different themes which we can identify being debated in present day.
The first themes come about assuming that Medusa was an innocent victim of rape. In this scenario, Medusa is the picture of the stereotypical female. She dresses modestly as society of the time would dictate; she acts humble and serves when she can. Her beauty is a reflection of the goodness within her, and in some ways is a curse to her since it causes men to look at her with lust. In this scenario, Poseidon takes advantage of her. He rapes her in Athena’s temple. This is one theme. Here, the powerful male is taking advantage of the helpless female. There is also the idea that he is innocent because he could not help himself (a theme that has very much so held onto its shape and form as it has traveled to present day). And another theme – as a god, and to an extent as a male, he was afforded that right (again, a theme that seems to have continued on strongly in the same form – this will be discussed in more depth later on in this paper). Then the next turn in this scenario; Athena turns Medusa into a Gorgon.
Many times Athena’s action in this case is referred to as a punishment which is not necessarily the case. Here is another theme, one regarding a female on female relationship. In this case, it is possible that Athena turned Medusa into a Gorgon with the intention to protect, not punish her. As a Gorgon, Medusa’s beauty would no longer cause men to lust after her for her beauty, and she would have some power (of petrification) over those who did dare to come around. The idea of punishment may have come about because Athena needed a cover. Though a god, the female stigmas and stereotypes still may have haunted her. She needed to show some outward sign that she possessed ‘masculine’ qualities – strength, order, and discipline.
The second scenario discussed earlier is the possibility that Medusa was a temptress who purposely used her beauty to tempt Poseidon. In this case, Medusa was not upholding her position as the innocent, modest female. She flaunted her beauty, especially her hair, and used it to seduce Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Again, we see Poseidon absolved of responsibility because he is a god and a male and unable to resist a beautiful woman. In this case, Athena is indeed punishing Medusa by turning her into a Gorgon. Medusa’s beauty was a source of pride which she used against Athena, and therefore, Athena needed to transform Medusa.
The final scenario is a mixture between the two. This particular scenario is described on the Medusa and the Image of Rape webpage:
Medusa was so beautiful as a young woman that she attracted the attention of Poseidon. She was thoughtless one night and visited the temple of Athena alone. Poseidon caught her there and raped her. From this act Pegasus was born. But the experience was not kind to Medusa and she turned horribly ugly. This was partly because Athena was disgusted that such a thing should happen in her temple. She wished to punish Medusa so that other young women would take better precautions.
This particular portrayal of Medusa’s fateful night in the Temple includes aspects of both of the previous scenarios. Again, Medusa is a beautiful woman who attracts Poseidon’s attentions (and again Poseidon is absolved of any responsibility). She is not a temptress, though. It is not her intention to attract or seduce Poseidon. However, this story puts Medusa at fault for not realizing that her beauty would cause Poseidon to act like a cat on catnip. Athena is “disgusted that such a thing would happen,” but she is also aware of the customs of the time. She punishes Medusa (a bit harshly) for her thoughtlessness, but also uses that punishment as a reminder to other beautiful young women of the unavoidable situation that they live in. She is punishing Medusa, as in the second scenario, but also helping the female population as a whole.
All in all, the following eight themes have been identified in the previous paragraphs:
1) The female (in this case Medusa) as an innocent victim of both the male (Poseidon) and her beauty.
2) The male with lustful desires who cannot resist his attraction to a beautiful female.
3) The male, in the superior position (as a god) had a right to do what he did.
4) The ‘punishment’ of one female (Medusa) by another (Athena) as a protection.
5) The ‘punishment’ of one female by another as a punishment.
6) The female as a prideful temptress, using her beauty to seduce the male.
7) The female as a thoughtless maiden, not taking the necessary precautions to protect herself from the powers her beauty had over men.
8) One female using punishment of a female ‘victim’ to set the example for others.Each of these themes has been identified using the Medusa story from Greek mythology. A story that was formed centuries before what we consider the present time. However, each of these themes is still seen and debated today.
In her book entitled Where the Girls Are, Susan J. Douglas describes the reaction of viewers to a 1974-75 season television show called Police Woman. As Douglas states, “some women at the time praised Police Woman because it featured a strong female lead.” (Douglas pg. 211) However, Douglas does not agree with that assessment. She describes how the lead female (known as Pepper) was usually used in the undercover “prey” role as a prostitute or other such position, rather than in the “predator” cop role. She says:
Pepper was invariably found out by the bad guys and always had to be rescued by the white, male cavalry, the real cops . . . Often she was rescued just as she was about to be raped or sexually violated in some other way. So the audience got to fantasize briefly about a woman who dared to do a “man’s job” getting her just deserts [sic]. (Douglas pg. 210)
In this example we see the third theme bright and clear. The men in the storyline who are the ‘bad guys’ still have some sort of right to violate Pepper because she has infiltrated their maleness. She has “dared to do a ‘man’s job.’” (Douglas, pg. 211) Basically, she is threatening the superiority of the male by entering one of “his” professions, and therefore, as a superior, as a god, the male has a right, per se, to violate her. Douglas also brings up two more issues that correlate to themes already discussed. These are themes (2) and (6). Douglas speaks of how Pepper’s co-workers encourage her to use her “sex appeal” as often as possible to do her job. In one episode, Douglas says, Pepper is able to “secure authorization for a wiretap from a lecherous judge.” (Douglas, pg. 210) The judge, being a lustful male, is portrayed as being unable to resist Pepper’s charms. Simultaneously, Pepper is using her charms to tempt and seduce the judge.
This example also seems to parallel a part of the Medusa story that was not previously discussed. As Alicia Le Van describes in her paper “The Gorgon Medusa,” Medusa used to be “an ancient symbol of female power and wisdom.” However, as the culture, especially in Greece, became more patriarchic, this was no longer acceptable. Le Van writes that the male Greek hero “. . . constantly conquers the cyclical pattern of nature and tries to make it linear. He tames the wild feminine forces and makes women conform to male-servicing gender roles . . . her [Medusa’s] images, (as well as women), are mastered and domesticated . . .” Pepper is put into a role where she is supposed to have power and wisdom. However, it is not acceptable for her, as a female, to have those qualities. Therefore she fails and must be rescued. Douglas also speaks of how Pepper is often shown getting coffee for her male counterparts. This is a subtle yet powerful image of a female who is supposed to be powerful getting reduced into a role where she serves the male.
Another example of modern day appearance of these themes is seen in Myra Macdonald’s discussion of the 1988 movie The Accused in her book Representing Women. The movie is basically about a young woman who is gang raped at a party. Once again, the theme of the male being unable to resist the female’s beauty is brought up. Macdonald describes the woman, Sarah, as being “dressed in a mini-skirt and low-cut top . . . presented as the archetypal ‘looking-for-trouble’ young woman.” (Macdonald, pg. 188) In this case, we see theme (7). Following the theme, Sarah does not take the necessary precautions to protect her from the men. Therefore, a punishment is received.
Themes (1), and (5) are also demonstrated in this example. Following one of the screenings, women who had experienced violence as well as those who had not were asked their opinion. Those who had not experienced similar violence fit into theme (5). They did not necessarily blame Sarah for what had happened to her, but they sympathized with those who had violated her (on the grounds that peer pressure amongst males is very high and hard to stand up against). (Macdonald, pg 189) That sympathy is a punishment in itself. Those women who had experienced violence had no sympathy for the men who violated Sarah. They are examples of theme (1). To them, Sarah was innocent in her actions, a victim of the men and her beauty. The difference here is that she is not held responsible for her beauty – the males are held responsible for not being able exercise self-control.
The movie Fatal Attraction, which we viewed in class, is also discussed by Macdonald. Themes (2), (4), (6), and (8) are evident in this movie. Alex, initially depicted as a strong, independent business woman, is seen as the Medusa figure. She becomes the temptress and seduces Dan, a man who she has recently worked with. Dan, of course, has a horrible time resisting Alex’s attempts even though he is married and has a child. Not only is he married with a child, but he is basically living the stereotypical loving family life. His wife is loyal, his child happy, they have a nice home and are looking to move into a nicer one, and they have a dog and eventually a bunny rabbit. However, none of it is able to prevent him from succumbing to Alex’s womanly charms. He feels semi-guilty, of course, and has to suffer slightly for it, but in the end, it is Alex’s fault.
The other themes that occur in Fatal Attraction appear after Beth (Dan’s wife) finds out about the affair. This brings in the Athena/Medusa, female on female, dynamic. In the end, it is Beth who delivers the death blow to Alex, thus protecting her family. In a way, she is also protecting Alex from herself. After the affair had taken place, Alex began to show psychotic tendencies and an obsession with Dan and having a family like his. Alex could not have that family, and she did not have the means to get it. By ending her life, Beth was freeing her from that heartache. At the same time, Beth was punishing Alex, who was a ‘victim’ of her own mind, in an attempt to warn others that Dan and her family were not to be messed with. Any women such as Alex who might come around in the future would need to take the necessary precautions with themselves.
The next example is again one that is discussed by Macdonald. However, rather than a movie or other form of media aimed at entertaining the masses, this example discusses the attitudes of the media (which eventually plays a large part in determining the attitudes of the masses) toward rape victims. Rape is a crime of power, not necessarily sexually motivated. As this is not a widespread idea, the victim of rape (normally female) is often thought to be at fault for those actions taken against them. Macdonald writes “The view that women incite rape by the way they are dressed or behave, or by the location they are in, survives . . .” (Macdonald, pg 187) Once again, the woman is not thought to have taken the necessary precautions to protect herself. Macdonald also speaks about how newspapers report rape. There are acts carried out against the ideal, innocent female, and there are acts carried out against the female who was “asking for it.” In the cases of the innocent female, the newspaper will see the female victim as a victim. In the cases of the other female, the blame is put on her.
In Suzanne W. Hull’s book, Women According to Men, she discusses a theory that was popular in England in the mid to late 1600’s. This theory basically compared the female reproductive system to that of the male. Basically, the female was thought only to be fertile if she was enjoying herself during a particular sex act. If a woman was raped and became pregnant, she was immediately considered at fault because she must have enjoyed the act (she wouldn’t have become pregnant if she had not). (Hull, pg 96-97) This intrigued me because of the connection with Medusa conceiving Pegasus as a result of her interaction with Poseidon. Under this particular theory, she would have been irrefutably at fault for what took place in Athena’s Temple.
Each of the themes presented and discussed above were present in the Medusa myth and are present in society now. In the majority of the examples, the female represented was designed by a male.
[Women] are being turned all the time into objects of display, to be looked at and gazed at and stared at by men. Yet, in a real sense, women are not there at all. The parade has nothing to do with woman, everything to do with the man. . . Women are simply the scenery on to which the men project their narcissistic fantasies.
This quote, by Laura Mulvey, says just that. (Walker, pg. 188) The female image is often objectified. Turned into something that is to be put on display. This particular idea goes hand in hand with the themes that have been discussed.
One of the places this seems most prevalent is in present day advertising. This takes us back to theme (2), the male being unable to resist. One of the main goals of advertising is to promote a product to the point where it cannot be resisted. The person looking at a particular advertisement should desire and want to own that particular product. In looking at this particular twist, two sources were consulted. The ELLE Magazine November 2002 issue, and the MAXIM Magazine December 2002 issue.
Perusing through the MAXIM Magazine (aimed at a male audience), one will see that the articles contain the expected images of women (in lingerie, skimpy clothes, and suggestive poses). Men already have an objectivistic view of women, and the articles in the magazine simply reinforce that view. The advertisements, however, have relatively few female models. The products advertised in this magazine are items destined to be used by men. If it is beer being advertised, then a picture of the beer is shown. If jeans are being advertised, then a picture of the jeans is shown. (See Appendix 1) In an advertisement where underwear is being advertised, the whole male figure is shown, participating in the manly pastime of weight lifting. These advertisements do just what they said they would do. They advertise certain items to the men, making the men desire and want to own them. The few times that women are used in the advertisements, it is as a compliment to the men in the advertisement. The articles do the same thing to the women as the advertisements do to the products. They advertise the women, and make the men desire them and want to own them.
Perusing through the ELLE Magazine (aimed at a female audience), one will see that both the articles and the advertisements themselves contain images of women. These images are somewhat shocking. While the male-aimed MAXIM Magazine did as was expected and basically objectified women in articles alongside advertisements for what they desired, the female-aimed ELLE did almost the same thing. However, instead of trying to make women desire to own something . . . these images entice women to want to BE something. In both advertisements and articles, females are objectified. Take, for example, the examples attached in Appendix 2. The first is an advertisement for a handbag, obviously aimed at the female audience. The model has the strap around her forehead and is holding the bag up with one hand. Only her upper torso, just above her breasts, and her head is shown. Her makeup is overdone, clownish. In a way, she has become one with the handbag, an accessory to the handbag. The next advertisement has very similar overtones. The picture is of a large bottle of perfume, and the female model is clinging to the top, dangling down as though she is a ribbon accessorizing the bottle. The third advertisement is especially intriguing, as it is an advertisement for jeans. Remember the advertisement for jeans that was aimed at the men? It was a pair of jeans, nothing more. This advertisement for jeans aimed at the women doesn’t even really show a whole pair of jeans. Rather, the female model is sitting in a provocative position, with a jean tie around her neck as well as a beaded chain. She looks as though she has just been taken advantage of. This is what women are supposed to want to be. This image, of powerlessness, of vulnerability, is what women are supposed to attire to attain, what they should want to be. Many of the authors quoted above mention the difficulty in showing violence against women on the big screen – because many men find it “titillating;” the acts have been glorified. And here, an advertisement is calling women glorify the image as well. The magazine aimed at the men objectifies women. This is something expected. The magazine aimed at the women urges women to desire to be objectified. This is a new dynamic, a new theme that was not expected.
Here, I go back to a theme discussed at the beginning of the paper. Was Medusa simply an innocent victim of a lustful god . . . or was she a temptress who purposely defamed a Temple? To have a definite answer to this question would not be helpful. At this point, there is no real way to come up with a definite answer. Instead, we are faced with the confusion and chaos of trying to figure out an answer that we, as a society, can live with. This is a process that will never end. Just as one can continue cutting something in half until it is smaller and smaller and smaller, they will never reach the goal of having it disappear completely. Each half is identical to the other half, just slightly smaller.
In all of this we may think that we are making progress. However, this is similar to those who thought that the television show Police Woman was making progress. Once we can step back and really look at the issues, we will realize that we really aren’t. On the outside, we are. There are now many females who hold traditionally male professions (and there are many males who hold traditionally female professions). There are females in places of power, who step up and speak out. All of these things were at one point unheard of. However, when we look closer, at the details of our society, at the subtle messages inherent in everyday life, we will realize that the ‘progress’ is merely superficial.
In some ways, in trying to right all these wrongs, we end up reversing what we think we are trying to achieve. As a society, we are trying to right the wrongs that are inherent in most of the themes discussed. We want the female not to have to worry about being blamed for being violated, not to be told that her beauty was essentially a request to the world to be violated. We want the male to be held responsible for the actions he takes. We want women to perhaps step back and look at the whole picture, not instinctually sympathizing with the male as those who watched the movie The Accused initially did. But then we look at magazines such as ELLE and MAXIM. ELLE is a magazine for women, something that would have once been celebrated as a step forward in the struggle. But the images it sets forth to the women who read it are basically telling the female to objectify herself and to like it. All of this is under the guise of woman power. This is perhaps more dangerous than any outright violations. At least in Medusa’s time, the societal norms were actually norms. Yes, it was wrong that she, as a female, was blamed for what happened to her . . . at least she knew what was happening. In present day, we do not even realize what is happening to us on a daily basis.
The themes of the Medusa story, especially those on how she came to be, have stood strong throughout the ages. As a society, we unwittingly promote those very same themes that we so easily criticize when looking at the Medusa story that is in the ‘past.’ These themes have lived on through centuries. Perhaps they will never die out completely. Therefore, as individuals in this society we need to guard those ideals that we are trying to achieve and not compromise on even the small and subtle attacks to those ideals.
Bibliography
Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Random
House Inc., 1994.
Hull, Suzanne W. Women According to Men. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1996.
Inness, Sherrie A. Tough Girls. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Macdonald, Mya. Representing Women: Myths of Femininity in the Popular Media. New York:
St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1995.
Sandman, Peter M., David Rubin, and David Sachsman. Media. London: Prentice-Hall, International, Inc., 1972.
Walker, Julia M. Medusa’s Mirrors. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998.
Medusa and the Image of Rape. <http://junior.apk.net/~fjk/medusa.html>
The Gorgon Medusa. Alicia Le Van <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/classes/finALp.html>
ELLE magazine advertisements taken from the November 2002 issue.
MAXIM magazine advertisements taken from the December 2002 issue.
Appendix 3
1) The female (in this case Medusa) as an innocent victim of both the male (Poseidon) and her beauty.
2) The male with lustful desires who cannot resist his attraction to a beautiful female.
3) The male, in the superior position (as a god) had a right to do what he did.
4) The ‘punishment’ of one female (Medusa) by another (Athena) as a protection.
5) The ‘punishment’ of one female by another as a punishment.
6) The female as a prideful temptress, using her beauty to seduce the male.
7) The female as a thoughtless maiden, not taking the necessary precautions to protect herself from the powers her beauty had over men.
8) One female using punishment of a female ‘victim’ to set the example for others.
Appendix 1
MAXIM Magazine advertisements
Appendix 2
ELLE Magazine advertisements
Should Females Govern the World? Julie Guerre-ChaleyWhen I was younger, I used to think that women should rule the world. Whenever there was a serious issue that needed to be addressed women would be able to sit down in a civilized manner and discuss the problems over a nice cup of tea. I believed that women would compromise and solve all earthly concerns that arose with ease, grace, fairness, and justice. While I believe these are all characteristics women possess, I never considered the thirst for power, status, fame, money, or any of the corrupt causes that instigate competition between males that rule the world.
Many men have been mangled, killed, tortured, and brutally sacrificed at the expense of male aggression due to their pursuit of power. Wars have been the general solution to many worldly issues. War sounds like quite a silly concept, “Whoever kills the most people wins!!!!” Now that really cannot be the only way to govern this planet. It would make more sense to just use paintball guns, that way you can go through all the motions, but the people can get up and walk away from it in the end.
Logically, to avoid people from having their lives stripped away from them, people should allow the female sex to guide and govern humans. Women are caring and gentle, not to mention, they bring life into the world, not destroy it. But are women this way when they are faced with a competitive environment, or feel threatened socially? Women are not notoriously known throughout history to savagely kill each other- so it appears that women leaders would be the key to end the evilness that thrives in war.
The problem with the solution of allowing women to rule the world is this: it neglects to acknowledge the fact that the thirst for power and status is not indigenous to the male sex. Men and women alike are equally affected and possessed with these desires, and in the pursuit of these things, they will stop at nothing. The difference is that the physical evidence of female aggression is scarce, for they don’t have a tendency to physically be aggressive towards each other due to conflict or power struggles. So, what DO women do?
Many present day feminists have posed this question. Within the past two years, there have been fountains of publications about how females are inhumane and destroy each other from the inside out as a result of competitions. While the gathering of evidence of such injustices, and the tactics females use to demoralize each other have yet to all be identified and analyzed, evidence of female aggression is obvious in tales as early as ancient Greek myths. The Medusa myth demonstrates a female’s willingness to defile another female when threatened. Athena’s punishment of Medusa for being raped in her temple shows how girls will turn on each other when their position in society is threatened.
The Medusa myth has been referred to quite often in regards to the power struggles between males and females. Perseus beheading Medusa is frequently referenced and debated throughout history. The theme of Athena punishing Medusa for being raped is not mentioned nearly as much, even though it is a great place to start for discussing the roots of female aggression.
The Greek myth about Medusa reveals how a society believed that men should be in control and govern the culture. “Some scholars believe that the Greek and Roman Medusa myth, as told by Ovid, expresses the vanquishing of the great goddess religions as the male gods Zeus/Jupiter and Poseidon/Neptune gained power. Others view it as expressive of the subjugation of women's bodies and enslavement of their spirit by a violent and oppressive male-oriented culture, which viewed Medusa's life-giving, creative, primal energy as threatening.” (Philemon)
Medusa was a threat to both the male dominated culture as well as Athena. The use of the myth is multifaceted. It suggests that women will be enslaved by men and punished by women should they try to succeed. It sets the tone in society for females to tear each other down when they feel that another female possesses something unique or beautiful, rather than supporting, helping, or praising that woman.
The Medusa myth survives from one of the earliest human civilizations. Throughout the years of telling and retelling the tale, it would make sense that the myth might become distorted or told in different lights. However, most of explanations of this story in Greek mythology depict Medusa as a victim of rape being punished by another female.
One modern interpretation of the myth says, ““Medusa, originally a beautiful young woman whose crowning glory was her magnificent long hair, was desired and courted by many suitors. Yet before she could be betrothed to a husband, Poseidon (Neptune) found her worshipping in the temple of Athena (Minerva) and ravished her. Athena was outraged at her sacred temple being violated, and punished Medusa by turning her beautiful tresses into snakes and giving her the destructive power to turn anyone who looked directly at her into stone.” (Philemon)
This web page also includes an interpretation from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in book 4:1181-95, translated by Thomas More: “Beyond all others she was famed for beauty, and the envious hope of many suitors. Words would fail to tell the glory of her hair, most wonderful of all her charms--A friend declared to me he saw its lovely splendor. Fame declares the Sovereign of the Sea attained her love in chaste Minerva's temple. While enraged she turned her head away and held her shield before her eyes. To punish that great crime Minerva changed the Gorgon's splendid hair to serpents horrible. And now to strike her foes with fear, she wears upon her breast those awful vipers--creatures of her rage.” (Philemon)
Both interpretations of the myth, despite the gap of many generations, depict Medusa as being a criminal. A man stripped away whatever beautiful thing Medusa had to offer to the world when she was raped. Then, a female permanently took away her gift by turning her into a beast and making her unavailable to the rest of the world. Both explanations of the myth tell of how Athena punishes the victim out of anger and jealousy.
Yet another depiction of the myth tells how Athena chastises Medusa. “She is celebrated for her personal charms and the beauty of her locks. Neptune became enamored of her, and obtained her favors in the temple of Minerva. This violation of the sanctity of the temple provoked Minerva, and she changed the beautiful locks of Medusa, which had inspired Neptune’s love to serpents.” (Routledge) In this description, as in the others, Medusa is not purposefully trying to allure Neptune or defile Athena’s temple.
This website continues to talk about the Medusa myth and how it is a reflection of Greek society and how they view females. “Robert Graves (Greek Myths, 1958) believes that the myth of Perseus preserves the memory of the conflicts which occurred between men and women in the transition from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society. In fact the function of the Gorgon's mask was to keep men at a safe distance from the sacred ceremonies and mysteries reserved for women, i.e. those which celebrated the Triple Goddess, the Moon. Graves reminds us that the Orphic poems referred to the full moon as the 'Gorgon's head'. The mask was also worn by young maidens to ward off male lust. The episode of Perseus' victory over Medusa represents the end of female ascendancy and the taking over of the temples by men, who had become the masters of the divine which Medusa's head had concealed from them.” (Brunel)
There are definitely conflicts and power struggles between men and women. The part of the Medusa myth that should disturb a reader is how Athena punishes Medusa. Whether this habit of females clawing at each other and tearing each other down in the face of competition is a learned practice from myths and tales or an inherent tendency, it is a tradition that survives from Greek society. The myths may very well be a reflection of reality and how females treat each other when they rival one another, however, it cannot be ignored that the myths are also a device that carries on the tradition of women degrading each other.
In the following retelling of the myth, it doesn’t even mention the fact that Medusa was raped. The perception is that Medusa did something to rival Athena, so Athena punished her and turned her into a monster. “She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Athena, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a cruel monster of so frightening an aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone” (Medusa in Myth). However, the web page doesn’t continue to talk about how it is wrong for Athena to punish Medusa, rather it goes on to talk about how Medusa should not have dared to compete with Athena’s beauty. “It was her tragedy that she was foolish enough to compare herself to a goddess.” (Medusa in Myth)
There was one example that showed Athena might have some remorse for her actions and leads the reader to question the validity of Athena’s actions. In the book Chimera, Athena tells the story about herself in the third person, describing how she punishes the victim of the crime. “…And Poseidon put her under. Shocked Athene turned away, Medusa did too, but my, her eyes were fastened on the shields’ reflection: as the blue-eyed scallop resists the greedy star, but at length is pried and gobbled, so she saw herself shucked and forked by the muscled god. When he was done she redid through her tears her hair, to look more becomingly ravished, and called on Athene to avenger her. But the goddess, in her wisdom, punished the victim for the crime. Me-Medusa she banished to Chilly Hyperborea with her sisters, whom she’d cursed into snake haired frights; the very sight of them was enough to turn Medusa’s suitors to stone when they approached her.” (Barth, 89)
The use of the words “punish” and “victim” in the retelling of the Medusa myth suggests that Medusa was not the person in the wrong. It alludes to the fact that Athena might have been jealous or had an ulterior motive for hurting Medusa. Later in the book, it is learned that Athena “degorgonizes” people because she develops empathy for them. This also suggests that her original actions of punishing Medusa are mistaken.
The myth of Medusa presents evidence of females punishing or oppressing females in a male dominated culture. They are competitive with each other and vie with each other for attention from males. In this process, they tear and claw at each other, like cats trying to get out of a bag.
This evidence of how females take out aggression is not only evident in the Medusa myth, but others as well. Phyllis Chesler points out “Fairy tales depict older women as witches, monsters, and wicked stepmothers. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel all come to mind, but there are many more such stories in history.” (Chesler, 168) (She forgot to mention The Little Mermaid and 101 Dalmatians.)
There are countless examples of female deception throughout literature and history, but nobody really pays much attention to the damaging effects of the aggressions that females take out on each other. It’s evident in humanity’s fairy tales, myths, plays, novels, and music. It is almost as if female aggression is so entwined in our culture that people continually fail to recognize it. Females deceive, punish, torture, and hurting each other’s dignity and pride. If all of this evidence of aggression caused by competition between females surrounds us, then WHY DON’T PEOPLE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
The first question I wrote down in my notebook after learning the Medusa myth was, “Why does Athena punish Medusa?” This question haunted me all semester long and echoed in my mind when my mother was talking about the seventh grade female students in her classroom. Observing the actions of young males and females in competition shows the capacity in which they are demeaning and cruel to each other in order to gain success. Boys can bully each other, but girls demoralize each other. I think all females have bared witness to the cruelty resulting from the competition involved in middle school social dynamics.
The root of all this competition comes from jealousy and lack of self-esteem in females at a young age. People feel as though they need to be accepted and have something to prove at a young age. This causes fierce competition between young people. Males might want to be the best football player. Females want to be the prettiest and most popular. These motivations are all from within and all depend on the opinion of others. There appears to be no concept of accepting yourself and loving yourself for who you are. Humans at this age seem to be dependent on the opinion of others as an indicator of who they truly are, as thought they are performing for the Olympic judges, trying to get a 10.0 on their popularity level.
This constant state of competition in adolescence allows people to easily see aggression in males and in females. Middle school and high school concerns consist of social status, boys, power, and the establishment self worth. Females in this competitive social setting are ruthless in order to maintain their reputation. If a female feels that another pretty female threatens her popularity status she will find ways to completely destroy the reputation of the competition. This can be done by spreading false rumors, giving her nasty looks, or excluding her from group activities. While these things won’t kill a person, they can make a person feel alone and worthless. In extreme cases, this brutality can cause a person to become suicidal.
As I began research for this project to establish evidence of female aggression I did many searches at two different libraries. Had I endeavored to find documentation of such actions more than two years ago, I probably would not have found anything supporting my argument. The only proof of female aggression survived in fairy-tales, myths, stories, and personal experiences. Nothing was really published or researched in this area until the year 2000, when Rachel Simmons asked herself the same questions and wrote Odd Girl Out.
Simmons began research because she could never let go of the feeling of abandonment she felt when another girl betrayed her and she lost a lot of her friends in grade school. She carried this feeling with her for sixteen years and found no explanations for it in the library when she finally tried to find out what causes female aggression. So Simmons set out on her own, and after her work, a slue of articles, books, and research followed. Finally, aggression in females is being identified and analyzed.
Girls are described by other girls as being secretive, manipulative, evil, cruel, catty, crafty, and cunning in the book Odd Girl Out. “They destroy you from the inside. Girls target you where they know you’re the weakest. Girls plan and premeditate.” (Simmons 16) Females use these tactics to make other girls feel badly. It is a way to preserve their place on the social ladder. Simmons states the truth about popularity and girls: “It is a cutthroat contest into which girls pour boundless energy and anxiety.” (156)
As if these articles and books were not enough evidence, I interviewed and video taped some midshipmen about the way they treated other girls in high school. I had evidence from females who were victims and testimony from the aggressors. What scared me the most was that the aggressors didn’t seem to show any remorse for their hateful acts, and even seemed eager to flaunt their inhumanity on video camera. This was a painful reminder that age is not an indicator of maturity.
The aggressive females still seemed to rely on the opinions of others to gage their own self worth. They seemed to relish the fact that they could tell other midshipmen about how popular they were in high school. It was plain to see that their social status was still very important to them.The evidence of female aggression in adolescence is plain to see, and it is not surprising that these same tactics are used when females feel threatened throughout their lives. Instead of beating someone up or killing someone, females can manipulate and demoralize a person. So to what extent is one worse than the other?
After examining many different examples of the telling of the Medusa myth, I have realized that the creators of the story intentionally made Athena punish Medusa. It made no sense to me the first time I read the myth until I started researching female aggression. Through the research, I came across countless examples of stories, myths, fairy tales, and characters throughout history that depict females punishing each other.
The cruelty among females was extremely disturbing and it sparked the idea to research female aggression and how they take it out on other females. The further exploration of this took place in the video. The actions of females in the face of competition are now being researched and the results voiced. It is this process of voicing and discussing these actions that we can begin to get to the root of these actions and come up with a solution.
I retract my earlier feelings about having only females lead the world. All humans are susceptible to greed, fame, money, and power. All humans have a response and a certain way of dealing with competition. Men in pursuit of corrupt possessions will start wars, while females will defile each other. Humanity is not safe in the hands of either sex. People will only be safe in the hands of empathetic, loving people, regardless of their sex.
The Medusa myth, no matter how many times retold is a Pandora’s box. It makes humanity explore power struggles and their result on society. I chose to explore the female vs. female power struggle because it appeared to me that not many people focus on that aspect of the myth. Through this, I discovered that until recently, not many people focused on power struggles between females. I’m glad to have contributed to the research of this topic and make others aware of its domination in society.
WORKS CITED
Barth, John. Chimera. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972.
Chesler, Phyillis. Woman’s Inhumanity To Woman. New York: Thunder’s
Mouth Press/ Nation Books, 2001.Demir, Ayhan. “Conflict behaviors toward same-sex and opposite-sex peers
among male and female late adolescents.” Adolescence. Vol. 36. Rosyln
Heights: Libra Publishers Incorporated, 1999.Eberhard, William G. Female Control: Sexual Selection by Cryptic Female
Choice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.Madhavan, Sangeetha. “Best of friends and worst of enemies: Competition
and collaboration in polygyny.” Ethnology. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh, Department of Anthropology, 2002.“Medusa in Myth.” Mythography: Exploring Greek, Roman and Celtic
Myth and Art 1997. <http://www.logia.com/myth/medusa.html>.Philemon, Torrey. “Medusa.” 2000. ` <http://www.geocities.com/tmartiac/thalassa/medusa.htm>.
Ponton, Lynn, M.D. The Sex Lives of Teenagers: Revealing the Secret
World of Adolescent Boys and Girls. New York: A Dutton Book, 2000.Routledge, Pierre Brunel. Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes.
Routledge, 1996 <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bogan/medusamyth.htm>Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls.
New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002.NOTES
1. The purpose of this project was to show how females express aggression. There is not much evidence or research supporting female aggression except for the myths and tales we have encountered in our lifetime. The Medusa myth reminded me of how females are cruel to each other when they are jealous or feel that they are in competition with one another.
2. The naval academy is a very competitive place. The alpha female does exist here…and no wonder…it is HIGHLY competitive. These females who are insecure with their own ability seek acceptance. In the search for acceptance from other people, they will degrade women along the way. It is like throwing cats in a bag: they will claw each other to death to get out of the bag.
3. The easiest way to see the roots of female aggression is within a middle school/ high school society, where people are first developing themselves. The only competition here is sports and popularity…yet these small competitions are fierce and set habits in people that they will use throughout their lives.
4. I think that through the project and the paper, one can see the damaging results of female aggression.
5. It was a very disturbing process to complete research in this subject area, but the results were very interesting. I think you will see a lot more in this field as the years continue
Medusa’s Ambiguity J.T. KnickmanThe story of Medusa is a story of many underlying meanings. The question that we as students of the story must contend with again and again is: were these meanings intentional, or are we reading too far into the story? It is my assertion that, whether the meanings were built-in intentionally or not, the story was left intentionally ambiguous in order to underline the essence of Medusa. Any argument that we have over the validity of some contemporary idea attributed to this ancient story is just another case of Medusa exerting her power over us even after two millennia. The essence of Medusa is ambiguity: her story, her appearance, her crime and punishment, and even her gender are uncertain and up for discussion. This situation bothers modern readers because we live in a society that favors concrete things over the unsure. We like the “sure thing” in everything we do. We choose our careers, where we will live, and even the color of our cars based on guiding statistics that account for maximum safety and give us a better idea of what we can expect in the future. Medusa is the opposite of this. You don’t know what to expect from her because you don’t know anything about her for sure. You are left at a disadvantage, and at her mercy.
The facts of Medusa’s stories seem hazy and somehow changeable. While some students of the story say that her punishment is unwarranted because Poseidon raped her, others argue that her culpability is lost in the translation and that Athena was just in her vengeance against a human woman who would dare to defile her temple because she couldn’t restrain her lust. Others still say that her crime was pride and that Athena “zapped” her because she was too narcissistic and egotistical about her beauty. The back-story of the other Gorgons is also hazy. The reader is unable to discern where they came from and why they were immortal. It is also confusing why Perseus could use his invisibility to elude them, but not to sneak up on Medusa and cut off her head from behind. One of the most ambiguous things about the story is location: where does Medusa live; where do the Graeae live; and how does Perseus find both places? My point in bringing up these questions is not to build up to answering them, but to present them as evidence that it is important for the Medusa myth to be shrouded in mystery.
John Barth uses the ambiguity of the story as a license to change the facts around to suit his own purposes. In his story Medusa doesn’t know that she is no longer beautiful, and she bears no malice to any traveler that might come by. Nevertheless she turns them all into stone until Perseus comes wielding Athena’s shield. Instead of helping Perseus to vanquish the horrible she-monster, Athena’s shield shows Medusa her true appearance. Seeing the truth with her own eyes turns Medusa suicidal, and she opts for suicide by Perseus. Barth also has his version of Medusa somewhat lucid as a decapitated head, and oddly, she takes great pleasure in her role as an inhuman tool that immobilizes Perseus’ enemies. The liberties that Barth takes with the story are not just to reinforce his plot ideas. Barth is commenting on the fluid nature of the story and how every teller changes it a bit, and every artist has his own unique version of Medusa. Barth takes his version, and its characters, to the extreme in order to prove this point.Setting Medusa up as the opposite of her vanquisher, Perseus, is an effective way to analyze her as a character. Perseus is the antithesis of Medusa in that while she is the unidentifiable, Perseus fits seamlessly into his prewritten category of classic Greek hero. Perseus makes sure to check all applicable boxes in his hero career outline: he is born of a woman and a god (Zeus), he vanquishes numerous monsters including Medusa, and he rescues a beautiful maiden who is as helpless as she is innocent. Perseus can be seen as nothing but exactly what he is; he is his role, and his role is defined by him. Every hero in the Western literary tradition has been based in part or in whole on Perseus because he is the archetypal conqueror. While Perseus has many adventures and kills many monsters, he is defined almost entirely by his slaying of Medusa. His name comes from the Latin prefix “Pers” that is used in words like perscindo, which translates to “to tear to pieces.” Perseus is the representation of masculine Greek logic, and Medusa is the representative of feminine chaos. Much like how the Christian tradition has God creating order from chaos, Perseus creates order from the ambiguous and unfettered Medusa. By tearing Medusa into two pieces and separating the disorganized head from the body, Perseus makes both pieces controllable and makes the head into a tool. Medusa's name comes from “Met” a prefix also used in the term “metis”, or feminine wiles. This is perfectly fitting in that she represents the Greek’s idea of feminine chaos.
Looking at Medusa as a dangerous violator of convention, and Perseus as the bringer of order worked for scholars in the past, but today more and more people are challenging the idea and are looking at Medusa as something different. Many feminists use Medusa in much the same way Athena used her on her Aegis, as a symbol of strength and independence from men. The ambiguity of the story allows for interpretation and these contemporary women choose to interpret Medusa in a way that makes her the strong and defiant victim of male vices. As male scholars see Medusa as a warning and back off before they get turned to stone, female scholars are standing side by side with the immobilizer, unharmed, and are cheering her on. Medusa has become a mascot for these feminists who identify with Medusa’s trials at the hands of oppressive men, and with how she deals with them by looking within for her true feminine power, and unapologetically fighting back. One of these feminists is Helene Cixous who states her allegiance with Medusa in her essay published in Utopias: “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing, (Helene Cixous, in Utopias, p. 255).” To Cixous Medusa is the prototypical proud, defiant woman. She has stood up against male tyranny and exists to show women everywhere the strength that comes from self-acceptance and personal determination.
A more traditional (if not any more believable) view of Medusa is as the symbol of feminine mystery. Freud uses Medusa to back up his castration complex; a theory based around the idea that men fear what they do not know, in this case the female vagina. To the good doctor the Medusa story contains double castration metaphors, the first being the multiple phallic snakes on Medusa’s head, and the second being Perseus’ famous decapitation. The important difference between this analysis and Cixous’ is that while the female author embraces her differences from men, the male psychologist fears these same differences. Freud’s interpretation reflects his own insecurities, while Cixous’ premeditated interpretation gives her strength and confidence. It is fair to say that Cixous picks Medusa as her champion as a direct result of these male insecurities. What better way to show her own strength than by rallying behind the very thing that horrifies man, her supposed enemy?
In "Ode on a Grecian Urn" John Keats writes, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, --- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” If this is all we can know than we are in trouble when it comes to Medusa because we don’t even know exactly what she looks like. The truth about Medusa is that she is beautiful, ugly, and horrifying all at the same time, and that she is the only being on the face of the earth that can be described that way. This uniqueness emphasizes the importance and power of Medusa as a character, and explains why smart people make such a big fuss over her. Robert Lowell really strikes at the heart of this beauty controversy when he uses conflicting descriptions of Medusa’s appearance in a way that seems to make sense: “My heart bleeds black blood for the monster. I have seen the Gorgon. The erotic terror of her helpless, big bosomed body lay like slop. Wall-eyed, staring the despot to stone, her severed head swung like a lantern in the victor’s hand, (Robert Lowell, Florence).” It is hard to see how this description is in any way erotic in much the same way it is hard to see anything clearly in the world of Medusa.Artistic renditions of literary characters are always done with a certain amount of artistic license, leaving no two conceptions of a character the same. Medusa takes this to the extreme in the enormous range of different appearances that she takes on in art. Sometimes she has wings (on her back, head, or feet); sometimes she has legs and sometimes she has a tale on her lower half; sometimes she has fangs; sometimes she has scales; sometimes she is fat, sometimes she has an attractive body. The color of her skin ranges from flesh-toned, to red, to gray, to green. Sometimes Medusa is even given male physical characteristics in artwork. These characteristics go along with the gender confusion that the Greek’s saw in Medusa’s personality. Caraveggio used his own face as the model for his Medusa painting, and Cellini portrayed both the slayer and the slayed in his sculpture as having the same exact neuter face.
This gender-confusion is one of the more intriguing ambiguities of Medusa’s tale. Medusa is seen as having male characteristics because she is controlling and dominating-both masculine traits in Greek culture. Iris Murdoch plays with this intriguing idea in her novel “A Severed Head.” Murdoch’s Honor Klein character is first linked to Medusa: “Honor Klein’s body sagged and jolted beside me like a headless sack, and I could feel again the rough material of her coat grazing my hand” and then compared to a man:
"I saw only her hunched shoulders; and then, revealed momentarily, the back of her leg, turned and braced, a stout crepe-soled shoe, and the plump curve of her calf clad in a thick brown and white knitted stocking traversed by a dark seam. I returned my attention to the road. That curving seam reminded me just for an instant that she was a woman.” (Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head, p. 57).
Murdoch also connects Klein to another Latin definition for the name Medusa, queen, ruler, or guardian. These are non-traditional positions for Greek women (text link, http://medusa.plush.org/analysis.shtml) in much the same way that Honor Klein opposes all conventions of society especially those dealing with gender. Murdoch’s narrator attributes these male Medusa roles to Klein in this passage:
Something strange happened in that instant. As I turned to look at her she seemed transfigured. Divested of her shapeless coat she seemed taller and more dignified. But it was her expression that struck me. She stood there in the doorway, her gaze fixed upon the golden pair by the fire, her head thrown back, her face exceedingly pale; and she appeared to me for a second like some insolent and powerful captain, returning booted and spurred from a field of triumph, the dust of battle yet upon him, confronting the sovereign powers whom he was now ready if need be to bend to his wil., (Murdoch, A Severed Head, p. 58).”
This gender-confusion is one of the starkest examples of Medusa’s resistance to classification.
Another question whose answer is mired in the hazy facts of the myth is: “what power does Medusa hold over men that forces them to look at her?” Some would say that it is man’s natural desire to know the unknown, and that Medusa represents the mystery of femininity taken to the extreme. Others would say that it is simply hard to not look at something that you are told not to look at in much the same way it is hard to not think of a pink rhinoceros when someone tells you not to think of one. Whatever power Medusa exercises over the male sex, it is strong enough to cause rational men to seal their own doom in exchange for one quick glance. Virgil is so afraid of this power in Dante’s Inferno that he shields Dante’s eyes because he doesn’t trust Dante to avert them himself: “ ‘Now turn your back and cover up your eyes, for if the Gorgon comes and you should see her, there would be no returning to the world!’ These were my master's words. He turned me round and did not trust my hands to hide my eyes but placed his own on mine and kept them covered, (Dante, Inferno, translated by Mark Musa).”
We know that there is some sort of magnetic pull that draws men’s eyes to the petrifying gaze of Medusa. This fact is proven simply enough by the number of men that have fallen to her powers. Every man that was Perseus’ enemy upon returning to his mother Danae’s castle was turned to stone by the monster’s stare. The backstory also holds that the living monster Medusa had turned many adventurers to stone before Perseus’ arrival.
Freud offers a completely different take on Medusa, seeing her as a repelling figure instead of an attracting one:
This symbol of horror is worn upon her dress by the virgin goddess Athena. And rightly so, for thus she becomes a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desire-- since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. Since the Greeks were in the main strongly homosexual, it was inevitable that we should find among them a representation of woman as a being who frightens and repels because she is castrated. (Sigmund Freud, Medusa’s Head, http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sgs0889/laugh3.html).”
This disturbing theory adds an almost modern psychosexual spin on the Medusa head’s apotropaic aspect. Many people argue that Freud’s ideas about the dangerous nature of everyday women (which he says is represented in extremis in the case of Medusa) are more a result of his own personal hang-ups than any broad male condition. This is another case of: “How far do we look into the story?” But in any case it is obvious to see that Athena is using the severed head image to warn off possible enemies in much the same way barbarian societies throughout history posted the mutilated bodes of their vanquished enemies at their kingdom’s outer walls.
Iris Murdoch’s take on the repulsion versus attraction of Medusa is that of a progression. Martin Lynch-Gibbon starts off being naturally repulsed by Honor Klein and her Medusa traits; however, as the book goes on he is more and more intrigued by Honor and her wise, liberated nature. Eventually, Martin is head-over-heels in love with his controlling Medusa whom he now sees as beautiful:
Her face was strained and sallow and I recalled how she had looked when I first saw her in the fog at Liverpool Street Station with the drops of water upon her hair. She looked to my eyes of farewell touchingly mortal, as she had looked then, her demon splendour quenched. Only now I could see, in her ugliness, her beauty. (Murdoch, A Severed Head, p. 198).
The transformation of Honor Klein in Martin’s mind’s eye is a brilliant way to cover the gambit of perceptions toward the Medusa. The bizarre way that Martin does a mental 180-degree turn is a great metaphor for the ambiguity of Medusa in that no reader could possibly identify with the brainwashed Martin of the end of the story. Murdoch makes it so that it is impossible to side with Martin or to even begin to see his point. The way that Martin will describe a completely unattractive feature and then attribute beauty to it is a great way to steer the audience away from supporting the narrator. His ability to see beauty where there is none, and an opportunity for love where there is nothing but condescending scorn is reason enough for any reader to turn against the narrator.
John Barth also plays with the idea of Medusa’s ambiguous appearance. In his Perseid Medusa’s appearance is only definite in her back-story, which happens to be the traditional Medusa story. During the actual events of the "Perseid" the reader never knows for sure what Medusa looks like: “At that last moment in the banquet hall-it’s not easy for me to say these words, Perseus-when you discovered me and kissed me open-eyed . . . what I saw reflected in your pupils was a Gorgon, (John Barth, Chimera, "Perseid," p. 131),” or what effect her stare will have on a man: “In short, whoever unveiled and kissed her must do so open-eyed, prepared to risk petrifaction forever in a Gorgon’s hug, (Barth, Chimera, "Perseid," p. 107).” This process extends the ambiguous nature of the story and comes at it from a new angle. There is no magical shield in Barth’s story so the mystery takes on an even bigger role, and the themes of faith, sacrifice, and heroic vulnerability are introduced. Perseus ends up risking everything for the chance to achieve eternal true love with Medusa, proving that she does have some sort of attractive element.
So you ask: ‘what purpose does Medusa’s ambiguity serve?’ Medusa’s mysterious qualities afford her many advantages over those who wish to study her and those who wish to conquer her. According to Greek thought, Medusa is an exceedingly dangerous affront to all that is logical and male, and therefore she can list about half of the world’s population as her enemy. To even out the odds Medusa shrouds herself in mystery in order to remain an unknown quantity. Knowledge is power so any information that is secret adds to the danger and intrigue of the character. Our knowledge of her appearance is shaky because to foolishly look at her is to put ourselves in a position where we will no longer be able to report our observations. This takes away the control that a person can have over something by looking at it, and increases Medusa’s advantage because she can look at you as much as she wants. This would also set up a mental advantage for Medusa because she perceives herself as having more control over the fight than the hero, and the hero sees himself starting off at a disadvantage. So from a hero’s standpoint the less information he has going into battle the worse chances of survival he has, and from a literary standpoint the more information that remains as impossible-to-prove hearsay, the more fascinating the character is going to be. Medusa’s essence is that of chaos and mystery. It is her prerogative to remain a mystery in order to remain dynamic and flexible, while we are left frozen in our scholarly discussions of her.
Open and Shut: An Analysis of Medusa’s Mouth
Allen LernerMedusa is a carefully constructed mythological figure. Each aspect of her physical description is literally and symbolically important. With her hair made of snakes, glaring eyes that turn men to stone, and gaping mouth, Medusa is not just a mythological Greek monster, but a representation of the various aspects of women and their relation to men. While Medusa’s ability to turn men to stone is her most well known power, her mouth also holds significant meaning. In terms of psychology, myth, and culture, Medusa’s mouth symbolically represents sexuality, the fear of consumption, and the power of gender.
The symbolism and importance behind Medusa’s mouth primarily grows out of the Greek representation of her visage. However, while the Greeks constructed the most familiar image of Medusa, she was not entirely a creation of Greek culture. “Medusa existed as a goddess figure in Greek prehistory, probably as one face of the Triple Goddess, and our present myth of Medusa as a monster is the result of patriarchal savaging of this rival deity”(Wilk 221). The Triple Goddess of North Africa was the original Medusa figure, and while similar to the Gorgon in physical description she was not a monster at all. In actuality she was a beautiful goddess central to African culture that the Greeks twisted into a hideous creature.
“Prior to Medusa's de-evolution as a snaky-haired monster in Greek myth, she was worshipped by the Libyan Amazons of North Africa, as the great serpent goddess, the destroyer aspect of the triple goddess, An-Ath” (“medusaproject”). The “Destroyer aspect” (”poisontemple”) represented birth, death, and the power of past, present, and future. Her hair was made of writhing snakes and “it was said she was a veiled Goddess, which meant her face (the future) was hidden to all. Glancing under [her] veil would reveal what was to come ... a future that included the death of the inevitable inquisitor” (”poisontemple”). However, while the Destroyer’s head full of snakes and ability to kill men with a look would eventually manifest itself in the Greek Medusa, unlike Medusa, her attributes were not designed to breed fear. Instead, her traits represented the feminine virtues prized by African culture. Tribal art of the region particularly provides excellent examples of the African virtues displayed by the Triple Goddess. The masks of the North African Mende people show the “ideals of female beauty and virtue [including] elaborately braided hair (cosmetic skill, sexuality) [and a] small mouth (not given to gossip)” (“lib.virginia.edu”). The twisted locks of hair in the Mende masks resemble snakes and directly connect the Triple Goddess to Medusa, but in contrast to the Gorgon’s frightening vipers, her serpents did not incite fear but instead served as a symbol of fertility. Fertility and subservience (“not given to gossip”), as represented by the snake hair and small mouth, were two important aspects of women for African society. For the male dominated Mende society loyal women who could bear many healthy children were essential. Without young men and women farming, hunting, and taking care of the families, the community would fall apart, and it would collapse just as quickly if the women also became disobedient to the men and did not accept their status. To the North African tribes, the Triple Goddess with her small mouth and head full of serpents symbolically represented the ideal woman.
When the Greeks invaded North Africa, they assimilated the culture of the conquered tribes into their own culture. A common practice of the time, the assimilation served not only as a means to blend the two worlds together, but also as a way for the Greeks to degrade past worshipped deities. Gods and goddesses once worshipped could be placed into new myths as monsters and eventually they would no longer be worshipped but feared. This would influence the conquered tribes to abandon their old customs and accept Greek beliefs. In the case of North Africa, when it came time for the Greeks to adopt new figures from African culture, they selected one of the most powerful deities to incorporate into their myths. This deity, the Triple Goddess, would through the process of cultural evolution, eventually split into Athena and Medusa, a goddess and a monster (Wilk 221).Patriarchal Greek society shared many of the same desires in a woman as the male dominated North African tribes. However, instead of directly adopting the Triple Goddess figure they split her from a positive icon that displayed desirable traits into a Goddess with positive traits, and a monster with the negative attributes. This was not a conscious or immediate evolution. There was no committee formed to decide how the two aspects would evolve; instead, over time and through the already present feelings of fear of women in Greek culture, the Goddess transformed into Athena and Medusa. The name Athena grew directly from the Destroyer’s original North African name of An- Ath, but while her name remained the same she became a new deity in physical description. Her opposite, the Medusa figure, kept the physical traits of the Destroyer aspect but was given a new name. The evolution of Athena and Medusa from the Triple Goddess explains the connection between them, and it also shows that the two figures are designed as complementary images. When Athena was given the traits of beauty and chastity, Medusa was made ugly and seductive. In physical appearance Athena was the quintessential virgin figure with pale, unblemished complexion, and Medusa took the form of the snake haired Destroyer aspect of the Triple Goddess. In opposition to the virtuous characteristics of Athena, the physical traits of Medusa became sinister: the serpent hair of the African figure lost its representation of fertility and became a symbol of danger and poison in opposition to Athena’s protective powers. In order to counter Athena’s virginity, the Greeks physically changed the Triple Goddess’s flattering diminutive mouth to a large, hideous mouth with fangs. A reversal of the small mouth that represented subservience and obedience to men, Medusa’s open mouth now represented seduction and the sexual power women have over men. Where once the Destroyer aspect was a part of a symbol of virtues, she was now a femme fatale. As a seductress she drew men in with her sexual allure and then consumed and devoured them with her open mouth. She represented a woman that all men fear, one that is irresistible.
While the Greeks opened Medusa’s mouth to represent seduction, they were not the first or only culture to use the open mouth as a symbol of women’s sexual power over men. In fact, many cultures in their myths either used monsters with large mouths, or myths with heroes devoured by females to show the seductive side of women and the danger they are to patriarchal society. Specifically, the large mouth monsters and cannibalistic women represent the danger men face in being sexually consumed by a woman. In her book The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara Walker states,
The more patriarchal the society, the more fear seems to be aroused by the fantasy [of being devoured]. Men of Malekula, having overthrown their matriarchate, were haunted by a yonic spirit called “that which draws us to It so that It may devour us.” The Yanomamo said one of the first beings on earth was a woman whose vagina became a toothed mouth and bit off her consort’s penis. Chinese patriarchs said woman’s genitals were not only gateways to immortality but also “executioners of men.” Moslem aphorisms said: ‘three things are insatiable: the desert, the grave, and a woman’s vulva”… Stories of the devouring Mother are ubiquitous in myths…The Greek sema ir “semen: meant both “seed” and “food.” Sexual “consummation” was the same as “consuming” (the male). (“goddesscafe”)
The fear of women devouring men shown in these myths indicates that the Greeks were not the only ones concerned about the sexual power of females. Besides the myths in the eastern societies of the Malekula, Yanomamo, Chinese, and Moslem, the Sioux Indians of North America also had a myth in which “a beautiful woman accepts [the] love of a young warrior and unites with him inside a cloud. When the cloud lifts, the woman stands alone. The man was a heap of bones being gnawed by snakes at her feet.” These myths display that deep in the psyche of men, since the early days of civilization and throughout the world, women have always been a danger. The danger they possess comes from their seductive power and symbolic and literal ability to consume a man with their sexual allure.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) believed that the power women have over men is a result of a castration complex occurring during early childhood. According to Freud, men and women undergo basically the same early development, but when they become fixated on their genitals they diverge. This occurs during what Freud calls
the phallic stage, which occurs at approximately age four. At this point the focus of sexual fantasies for boys is the penis and for girls the clitoris….Since the boys external genitals are his central focus, castration would be the worst punishment he could imagine. His castration anxiety is greatly increased when he observes that girls lack external genitals. He assumes they have already lost their penises and that he too could lose his valued organ. (Frieze 30)To Freud the female genitalia, specifically the vagina, represent to males the possibility of being castrated. However, Freud in his deep belief in symbolism did not restrict the fear of castration solely to the vagina, but connected the complex to include all similar open orifices or structures (“freudfile”). Therefore, Freud’s theory explains that Medusa’s open mouth incites fear because of the equivalency to the vagina, a representation to men of an absence of a penis and the possibility of castration.
However widely Freud’s castration complex is accepted, others argue that Medusa’s mouth is terrifying because of the “fear of body and phallus being devoured by the” vagina denata””(Schneider). In The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Walker explains, “it is well known in psychiatry that both males and females fantasize of the mouth being the female’s entranceway to the vagina” (“goddesscafe”). Therefore, the mouth takes on the symbolic importance and characteristics of the vagina and vice versa. In a terrifying logic this means the female genitalia has teeth and the ability to consume and devour a man’s penis. Walker adds that as a result, looking into, touching, entering the female orifice seems fraught with hidden fears, signified by the confusion of sex with death in overwhelming numbers of male minds and myths. Psychiatrists say sex is perceived by the male unconscious as dying: “Every orgasm is a little death: the death of the ‘little man,’ the penis”. (“goddesscafe”)
The vagina denata theory goes beyond Freud’s castration complex. Where Freud believed that men feared female genitalia because they symbolize the possibility of castration, the vagina denata theory states that the fear is actually a result of the vagina not being a symbol, but the actual instrument that performs the castration. Women thereby control men during sex because of their power to actually take away the one physical object that identifies a man. Since sex is such a large part of our culture this power spreads from the bedroom to all corners of society. Women wield the power to draw men in with their sexual allure and then totally consume their life. To the male this life consuming force is the equivalent of a woman devouring his manhood.
Beyond myth and modern culture, in and outside of psychiatry, women are seen as a consuming force. In Peter Shaffer’s play The Gift of the Gorgon the power women have in a man’s life is seen in the development of the main character Edward. As Freud indicates in his Oedipus theory, all men are originally bound to women at a young age when they fall in love with their own mother. Whether or not this theory applies to the psyche of the entire male population is subject to debate, but it is generally accepted that women are usually the primary caregivers in families and are therefore closely connected with their children. To a child who cannot live without the assistance of an adult the mother becomes a powerful figure. The power the mother wields over the child influences him to appease her in order to either gain acceptance or avoid punishment. In the case of Edward and his mother, he strives to appease his mother and gain acceptance by earning a living. Edward attempts to earn his living by writing plays, but his mother is a “poor woman…brought up to believe that work has to be unpleasant or isn’t real work. Theatre is top of her lists of what’s frivolous…”( Shaffer 62).
Despite Edward’s eventual success he does not gain his mother’s acceptance, and this causes him to move away from her and run into the arms of another female power. For Edward and the typical heterosexual male this influence takes the form of the lover. Edward goes from his mother who is the first woman that greatly influences his life to Helen, whose allure both sexually and emotionally “delivers”(Shaffer 57) him. In Edwards case, Helen becomes not only his wife, but muse, co-author, and eventually the ultimate creative power and influence over his life. Edward cannot write a successful play without her advice and inspiration. Unlike the average male’s relationship, Edward and Helen do not progress any further beyond this point of marriage because of his insanity and eventual suicide. However, if following the stereotypical western path, eventually the lover consumes the man’s life to such an extent that they go beyond marriage and have children. The man now becomes tied directly to a woman not only emotionally, but also legally through the bonds of matrimony, and physically through his children that he creates with his wife. His marriage and his family will come to dictate most if not all of his actions. If he has any female children, feminine forces double their control over the man’s life. He is tied through marriage to a woman, and because the term “daddy’s little girl” did not evolve without reason, he is also bound with love and caring to his daughters. A man cannot escape a woman’s influence from the day he is born to the day he dies. Women through authority, love, and sex, consume almost every aspect of a stereotypical male’s life. Like Medusa with her mouth open wide, a woman is a powerful force that has the potential to swallow a male’s individuality and manhood.
Sigmund Freud and the vagina denata theory demonstrate through psychology and symbolism that sex and power can be connected to Medusa’s mouth. Symbolically her open mouth establishes her as a seductress, one that gains control by pulling men in with her sexual allure, and then devouring every aspect of their lives. In the figurative sense she is a consumer, a man-eating monster. However, as Carole Counihan points out in her book The Anthropology of Food and Body, symbolic eating is easily associated with literal eating because both share the common theme of seduction. While Medusa’s symbolic eating shows her ability to seduce, literal eating is “an important path to sexual liaisons”(Counihan 9) and an essential part of many courtship rituals around the world. Culinary history and culture show the importance of food and its connection to sex and power:
One of the most significant domains of meaning embodied in food centers on the relation between the sexes, their gender definitions, and their sexuality. In many cultures, eating is a sexual and gender experience throughout life. Food and sex are metaphorically overlapping. Eating may represent copulation, and food may represent sexuality. For example among the Mehinaku Indians, “to have sex” is defined literally as “to eat to the fullest extent…(Counihan 9)
This connection between food, eating, and sex establishes Medusa’s mouth as not just a frightening posture, but as a demonstration of hunger both literally and figuratively. Her open mouth suggests she desires sustenance, something to satisfy her appetite. Literally the way to solve hunger is to eat, but since eating and food is connected directly to sex, literal appetite also becomes symbolically associated with sexual satisfaction and desire:
The instinctive drives for food and sex are similar, and they often take on overlapping symbolic associations. There is a lifelong connection between oral and sexual gratification (Freud 1962). Eating implies intimacy, both sexual intimacy and kinship (Freud 1918; Siskind 1973). Both eating and copulation cause and symbolize social connection. (Counihan 9)
The feeling of hunger and emptiness transcends beyond the physical need for calories to sexual fulfillment; a full stomach creates little craving and gives overall satisfaction. However, what is frightening about Medusa’s mouth is that it never closes. It is always open, she is always hungry, and her appetite is insatiable. No food or man can satisfy her hunger--she constantly devours.
Medusa’s unappeasable desire for sex-- symbolic food-- places her in a position of power because those around her must attempt to quench her appetite or be devoured. This situation demonstrates that the connection between food and sex also develops a connection between food and power. Margaret Anne Doody in The True Story of the Novel states, “the discourse on food inevitably becomes a discourse on pleasure and on power”(Doody 420). A variety of cultural studies conducted in separate parts of the world found that women used food as a method of control over men. Women “exerted power over men by refusing to cook, cooking food men disliked, forcing them to eat, or manipulating the status and meaning systems embodied in foods”(Counihan 11). An example of this culinary extortion is an Ecuadorian woman who “exerted power over her errant husband when he finally returned from a drinking spree by serving him massive quantities of rich food which the husband, by force of etiquette, had to eat—with extremely unpleasant physical results”(Counihan 11). In this case it was not the woman’s appetite that caused a man discomfort, but rather her power over what he was eating. This demonstrates that a woman’s influence over a man is not restricted to what he must supply her, but what she can force him to do.
However, if this process is reversed the power shifts from the woman to the man. When a male force-feeds a woman is a situation where the male asserts his manhood by confronting the danger of the woman’s mouth. In Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Alec, a young noble man, is deeply attracted to a woman named Tess, and in a attempt to seduce her, he feeds her a strawberry out of his hand. Tess is reluctant to take the strawberry and Alec eventually forces her to eat it by pushing it into her mouth. This scene in essence demonstrates the power and paradox of the castration complex. The paradox is a result of the female genitalia supplying not only the threat of castration, but also serving to accentuate a male’s manhood. The absence of a penis reminds the man that he indeed has one, and therefore a “display of the penis (or any of its surrogates) is to say: “I’m not afraid of you. I defy you. I have a penis.”(“cc.utah.edu”). When Alec uses his hand to force a strawberry into Tess’s mouth, symbolically he is sexually forcing himself on her and establishing his manhood. Using Freudian symbolism his hand and fingers represent a “surrogate” penis and Tess’s mouth her vagina. This scene foreshadows when Alec later rapes Tess by forcing himself on her while she sleeps. Violently, brutally, Alec confronts the threat of castration and demonstrates his male power by first forcing her to eat and then raping her.
Whether it is Alec or Perseus, to a man the more feminine a woman is, the greater she is a threat. In essence a woman is dangerous; she is a symbol that a man can lose his penis and with that lose his manhood and identity. As Freud shows, Medusa is an exaggerated representation of this threat; she is in every facet a montage of all the frightening aspects of women. Medusa challenges a male’s manhood with her head full of snakes that symbolize castration, a threat that the female body naturally issues. Her staring eyes capture a man’s attention and paralyze him, turning him to stone with her sexual allure. And her open mouth symbolically flaunts her sexuality, drawing men towards her like an open trap so that with a snap, she can consume them, consume them in every way that a monster and woman can, from literally devouring a man’s sexual identity to figuratively consuming every part of a man’s life so that he loses his individuality. Medusa’s mouth is not open wide to emit a scream, but to swallow a man whole. Medusa is terrifying not because she is a monster, but because she is a woman.
Works Cited
Counihan, Carole. The Anthropology of Food and Body. New York:
Routledge, 1999.
Doody, Margaret Anne. The True Story of the Novel. New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press. 1996.
Frieze, Irene. Women and Sex Roles. New York: Norton and Company. 1978.
Schneider, Laurie. “Ms. Medusa: Transformation of a Bisexual Image.”
The Psychoanalytic Study of Society. IX. (1981):489-490.
Shaffer, Peter. The Gift of the Gorgon.
Wilk, Stephen. Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon. New
York: Oxford University Press. 2000
www.medusaproject.com
http://www.poisontemple.com/medusa.htm
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/clemons/RMC/exhib/93.ray.aa/Exhibition.html
www.goddesscafe.com/yoni/denata
http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/symbolism.html
http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sgs0889/laugh3.html
www.mastertexts.com/Hardy_Thomas/Tess_of_the_d'Urbervilles
Erika Macias Perhaps one of the mythological creatures in history that has been the subject of countless studies, scientific analyses, as well as cultural issues and final exam papers is the infamous Medusa. Researched and scrutinized over and over by numerous artists, writers, critics, professors, and students alike, this mysterious and legendary Gorgon has come to symbolize various motifs and themes, ranging from the hero and gender to the monster and religion. Nevertheless, the Medusa figure, as studied by many over time, has become a symbol of beauty and sexuality, despite the gruesome picture of her that many already imagine at the mention of her name. Specifically, a focus will be set on Freud’s castration complex as it deals with the gorgon myth and the idea many authors have of her beauty as it relates to females as a whole, especially with gender roles. Several modern and historic literary works will help to reiterate this point.
A short history will be provided to familiarize the reader with Medusa’s approximate origins. Several Internet websites give details of the origin of the name Medusa. In one case on http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/classes/finALp.html, Alice Le Van wrote her final paper, entitled “The Gorgon Medusa,” on the creature’s history and also gave an explanation of her name’s meaning: “Medusa means “sovereign female wisdom” where in Sanskrit it is Medha, in Greek it is Metis, in Egyptian Met or Maat. In her images, her hair sometimes resembles dread locks, showing her origins in Africa. There she had a hidden, dangerous face. It was inscribed [on certain shields] that no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse ones own death as she saw your future” (Le Van, 1997).
Interestingly enough, Le Van goes on to report that “[Medusa] was originally an aspect of the goddess Athene from Libya where she was the Serpent-Goddess of the Libyan Amazons.” According to the history of Medusa, this mythological figure sometimes associated with repulsiveness, was actually once a beautiful virgin who possessed the most gorgeous of hair of any other female goddess at the time. Legend has it that her golden, dazzling locks tempted Neptune, lord of the seas, so much so that he raped her in the temple of Athena. There is no written account that Medusa attempted to seduce or tempt Neptune in any way. Rather, her beautiful hair was to blame. And as if Neptune’s violation of her was not enough, Athena, incensed at the fact that such an act had occurred in her temple, banished Medusa and turned her into the only mortal Gorgon, precisely the same hideous monster we know her to be today. Many would believe that Athena should be Medusa’s saving grace as she was to Perseus, yet that is clearly untrue. Rather, Athena helped Perseus to defeat and behead Medusa in the end. No loyalty between the sexes exists here as some may expect for Athena to come to Medusa’s help. However, Athena transforms Medusa into a monster, which helps to explain the spectrum of evil capable of existing by any female—the same evil many believe Medusa is capable of incurring.
Beauty is in the Eye…
In fact, questions could arise as to why Athena did not come to Medusa’s aid rather than sentence her to such a “doomed” life and leave her an innocent victim for the second time. After all, Athena was a well-respected goddess from whom many sought help. Later of course, she helps Perseus in delivering the head of Medusa to Polydectes. Nevertheless, some authors, such as Mallarmé in Les Dieux Antiques (1880), focus on a more personal rivalry between the two women, one in which Medusa boasted she was more beautiful than Athena. Editor Pierre Brunel writes in his book, Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes, that both women share a number of characteristics and that Athena’s horrific transformation of Medusa was necessary to set herself apart from a “double negative”—that is, her wish not to have nothing to do with Medusa and remain a beautiful goddess. Brunel goes on to write from his website www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bogan/medusamyth :
snakes are the attribute of Athena, as illustrated by the famous statue of Phidias and indicated by certain Orphic poems which refer to her as 'la Serpentine'. Moreover, the hypnotic stare is one of the features of the goddess 'with blue-green eyes', whose bird is the owl, depicted with an unblinking gaze. Finally, because she has affixed Medusa's head to her shield, in battle or in anger she assumes the terrifying appearance of the monster. Thus, in the Aeneid (11, 171), she expresses her wrath by making flames shoot forth from her eyes. These observations are intended to show that Athena and Medusa are the two indissociable aspects of the same sacred power.
Thus, it makes sense when a staffer at www.monstrous.com writes, “beauty, though divine, is monstrous when jealousy reigns.” Even Apollodorus agrees with the notion that Athena was envious of Medusa. In Library and Epitome 2.4.3, he writes, “…the Gorgon’s head [Perseus] gave to Athena. Hermes restored the aforesaid things to the nymphs and Athena inserted the Gorgon’s head in the middle of her shield. But it is alleged by some that Medusa was beheaded for Athena’s sake; and they say that the Gorgon was fain to match herself with the goddess even in beauty.” Thomas Bullfinch echoes the same belief of Athena’s jealousy towards Medusa when he translates, “[Medusa] was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her chief glory but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a cruel monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone.”
Clearly, Medusa was transformed into a hideous creature from the supposed beautiful women she once was. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that beauty still can be seen in this transformation. A website entitled Fairy Tales and Fables (www.belinus.co.uk/fairytales/Wonders/Wonders02) describes in great detail Medusa’s new look, as it appears in a story called “The Gorgon’s Head.” The site’s designer, P.J. Brown, writes the following description of Medusa before Perseus beheaded her:
The snakes, whose venomous natures could not altogether sleep, kept twisting themselves over the forehead. It was the fiercest and most horrible face that ever was seen or imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful, and savage kind of beauty in it. The eyes were closed, and the Gorgon was still in a deep slumber; but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly dream. She gnashed her white tusks, and dug into the sand with her brazen claws. The snakes, too, seemed to feel Medusa's dream, and to be made more restless by it. They twined themselves into tumultuous knots, writhed fiercely, and uplifted a hundred hissing heads, without opening their eyes.
In fact, it is quite difficult to see any “inner beauty” with the Medusa creature even if the story is centuries old. An example will be provided to further prove this point. In an informal poll recently taken of approximately thirty students in Twenty-First Company, each student was asked two questions. They were to answer with the very first thing that came to mind without any real contemplation of the questions. I proposed the following to them: “What is the first word to come to mind when I say Medusa?” The second question, “What is the first word to come to mind when I say penis?” will be dealt with later on in the paper. Let us now concern ourselves with the first. Of the thirty people asked, about 90%, or 27 of them, answered “snakes.” The other three answers consisted of two “stone” or “stony,” and one “ugly.” While thirty students may not be indicative of larger society’s news, the fact still remains that a number of college-aged students do not view Medusa as the beautiful creature she once was but do understand or have at least heard of her power to turn mortal creatures who look directly at her into stone. In fact, some people in general are not familiar with the story of how Medusa was once a gorgeous woman with beautiful hair who was raped by Neptune and subsequently turned into the hideous creature by Athena herself.
Several examples of other scholars solely concentrating on Medusa’s unsightliness naturally do exist. A few online dictionaries explain fables and Greek myths, one website being Perseus and the Gorgon, Medusa’s Head, constructed by the Ivanhoe East Primary School in Australia to help elementary students better understand Greek mythology. The description they offer is “Medusa was living with her sisters, the Gorgons, on the rocks. Gorgons are huge ugly dragon-like figures with huge teeth and snakes for hair. Perseus flew to the island to chop off Medusa’s head. He found her and boy was she ugly!!! Perseus looked at Medusa’s reflection in the shield and with one stroke of his sickle, he chopped off her head.” With descriptions such as these, it is no wonder, then, that many people grow up only envisioning Medusa as a repulsive monster. In another example, Amanda Sichter writes in her poem The Sword Unsheathed in Medusa’s own point of view. After briefly explaining the fate of Medusa brought upon by Athena (in the third person narrative), Sichter begins writing half way through the poem in Medusa’s first person describing her new appearance. She writes on http://www.subreality.com/tcp/sword.htm:
I am the Gorgon now. My power has given me such terrible beauty that none can look upon me. They offer me anything…I do not listen, do not speak, do not accept, for I am so bright that I burn their eyes when I am veiled.
Here in this part of the poem, it is as if Sichter recognizes that her Medusa character is forever doomed (though not at all content with her new look) but wisely chooses not to look or respond to the many people who come to see her as gorgon. Again, human curiosity leads visitors to want to see Medusa for themselves, although she attempts not to appease them. Ann Stanford also writes about the tragedy befallen on her (in Medusa’s point of view) in her poem Medusa. In the beginning lines of stanza three, Stanford writes, “The prisoner of myself/ I long to lose/ the serpent hair the baleful eyes, the fact/twisted by fury that I did not choose” (pg 99). Once more, the role of Medusa as the victim of Athena’s “fury” is quite clear in this example, which also capitalizes on the unsightliness of this mythological mortal. Lastly, Amy Clampitt, in her Archaic Figure, describes the gorgon as the “terror of origins; disdain of all the allure that draws us in…” (Mirror of the Gorgon 22). From these instances, one might say it is easier to write about the apparent hideousness suffered by Medusa than to maybe look beyond the face and body.
Even so, when Medusa is analyzed and picked apart for her apparent repulsiveness, a great deal of beauty does, in fact, lie within her ugliness. It is no surprise that Medusa has long been the center of attention concerning a number of literary studies and essays. Is it any coincidence, then, that many of those who recognize this trait of hers are women? However, one such male author who saw the beauty in the gorgon was Percy Shelley, as critiqued by William Hildebrand in a collection of essays entitled The New Shelley, edited by G. Kim Blank. In “Self, Beauty, and Horror: Shelley’s Medusa Moment” Hildebrand dwells on Shelley’s Medusa poem (found on the website “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci” at http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/medusa/ mforum.html) and the beauty that this creature holds. Shelley writes in lines 5-6: Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie/Loveliness like a shadow, and on lines 9-10, “lips of the head of Medusa, giving it the grace that hardens the gazer’s spirit. The shadow is repeated in the second stanza in the image of the ‘melodious hue of beauty’ where ‘hue’ means phantasm or appearance” (Blank 151). Hildebrand chooses to focus not on the beauty above human consciousness but rather, what is ‘underneath’ (line 7) the shadow of beauty, within Medusa’s head, or in simpler terms, “Medusa centers on the mortifying effect on the self of beauty’s grace” (Blank 152). Jerome McGann, author of The Beauty of the Medusa: A Study in Romantic Literary Iconology, goes on to describe that “although Romantic artists (including Shelley) were all aware that she was, in some sense, a focus of evil, they generally agreed that she was innocent of the horror she generated, and that their own fascination was with her betrayed power and innocence. Finally, they all respected her power when it was manifested; in it they saw a symbol of cultural, sometimes revolutionary, change” (McGann 5).
While some doubt the beauty Medusa once had, but it is certainly possible that many still view her as such because of the fate befallen her. That is, her role as victim helps further explain why she was, in fact, so beautiful. The idea of Medusa’s hideous face acting only as a mask or mirror is further expounded upon by Hildebrand. While he still maintains the gorgon’s inner beauty, he believes she acts as almost “demonic mirror-image” to where Narcissus, a character in Shelley’s poem, looks in and sees a reflection. Finally, Hildebrand suggests that there is a strange pleasure in viewing any painting of Medusa’s cut off head (Blank 160). Consider the painting “The Baleful Head” by Edward Byrne-Jones created in 1887. In it, Perseus is holding Medusa’s severed head to show to Andromeda above a well of water. Obviously, neither can see the face of the gorgon directly, so they both must be content with the reflection. According to Hildebrand’s logic with the mirror image, Perseus and Andromeda could both view what really lies in their hearts. The possibility exists that the gruesomeness they see is only indicative of what they are capable of incurring—in this case, Perseus’ arrogance in promising to deliver Medusa’s head, certainly a ghastly gift, to Polydectes, and Andromeda’s “sick” desire to see the head of a decapitated being.
I believe Hildebrand successfully turns the tables when he argues that perhaps the ugliness of Medusa really comes from wishing to see another’s ugliness. Interestingly enough, there currently exists an acapella group of three women (Riley Jordan, Annie Wilkins, and Kelly Auty) who call themselves Medusa and concentrate on writing and singing songs about Goddesses. Their aim, according to their website, is to “present strong and beautifully crafted songs…our live act also employs vibrant rhythmic elements, gorgeous costumes, and bellydance.” I found it quite note-worthy that even modern music groups use mythological creatures as inspiration.
However, one such female author who views the Gorgon myth as not necessarily attractive and who also establishes patterns in another writer’s work is Mary F. Robertson. Here, Robertson attempts to explain the various “Medusa points” relating to family found in the writings of Anne Tyler, who is best known for her novels If Morning Ever Comes, Earthly Possessions, and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Robertson defines these “Medusa points” as those moments during “which a character refuses or is unable to respond to a family member in the way that member desperately needs or desires” (Robertson 124). Robertson goes on to write, “The Medusa points are semantically complex because, while they depict the characters as stony to others in the family, they show at the same time the healthy escape from total petrification. The characters have learned to turn their eyes away from the monster of family self-absorption and to seek their maturity and identity by means of other resources” (126-27). Basically, Robertson explains that Tyler’s various characters in her stories “try to help each other in the mundane ways of life. But in their minds and hearts they feel cut off, paradoxically because each feels suffocated by the other. Tyler shows that situations calling for responses considered proper in spousal and filial roles petrify people in both senses of the word: the constant intimate gaze threatens to turn people to stone and also scares them into stratagems to evade the threat, just as Perseus could not look at the Medusa directly” (Rainwater 124). In a nutshell, Robertson uses the Medusa myth to clarify how a number of Tyler’s characters suffer from being alone and are therefore drawn to strangers who are seemingly exotic only to feel petrification set in and begin to envision abandonment; thus, Robertson concludes that the “Medusa is never really killed in Tyler’s novels” (Rainwater 125). Overall, Robertson chooses to view Medusa as something to turn away from; in this case, the novel’s characters must look to other sources than the family for their maturity, an action that is essentially, going against the norm that defines the family as a strong foundation. In the end, the mystery of Medusa is that “she must be faced but cannot be faced, resisted and not yet resisted” (Blank 165).
To Decapitate = To Castrate
Freud’s theory of the castration complex basically states that the snakes in Medusa’s hair take the place of the males’ penis and that when Medusa is beheaded, the male fears a “horrific” subliminal castration of his own penis. In her book, Feminities, Masculinities, Sexualities, Nancy Chodorow gives a good explanation of Freud’s castration complex. She writes, “Medusa’s decapitated head, the castrated female genitals, evokes horror and even paralysis—a reminder of castration—in the man who looks at it, but this paralysis is also an erection, thereby asserting that the penis is still there” (Chodorow 23). From the stand point of simple physical appearance, those warriors attempting to face Medusa, such as Perseus, often feel insignificant and afraid of her natural libidal power due to the vast number of phallic symbols on her head. Basically, what is outside (on her head) shows what kind of masculine and libidal control she has on the inside (of her head). Also, by looking at the gorgon, these warriors become petrified because of the overwhelming castration fear. This fear in a sense "freezes" them in their tracks. I believe Freud argues that once they see all the snakes, or penises, on her head, they are so overcome with fear in that split moment that she will take their penises and add them to her collection, or that they are frozen ("turned into stone") by fear. An explanation of why many guys in general are constantly touching themselves in their “southern” regions? Perhaps.
The problem with his theory, however, is that Freud focuses on the snakes on Medusa’s head rather than her entire head. He even views them as female genitals, as in the case of the young boy mistakenly seeing the genitals of his mother, especially if there is pubic hair surrounding it. To me, viewing the numerous serpents all as many penises is almost overkill. Instead, I have chosen to view Medusa’s entire body as a penis and her head acting as, well, the head of the penis.
But before I go on, I must first pose the question, is there any beauty to one’s private parts? Certainly, many modern women’s magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Jane, have all taken surveys revealing that many women agreed that there is not much about a man’s penis that is attractive. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to the woman. (When I asked my two roommate’s opinions on the matter, they, too, concurred with the magazines that there is no beauty in the actual physical penis itself). In answer to my second question that I posed to my thirty different comrades (of approximately equal numbers of males and females), “what is the first word to come to mind when I say penis?,” a large majority, or about twenty-four of them (including all the females), answered with “sex.” A few other answers included “happiness,” “manliness,” and “stiffy.”
Though not as part of my poll, I attempted to engage in a conversation of whether or not there existed beauty in a person’s genitals, to which I often received a resounding no, often times more from the males than the females. Those that did say yes were, in fact, only females because, according to one respondent, “We actually take the time to primp ourselves down there.” So why then are so many males very defensive about their penises? While there were no males who admitted to any beauty concerning the penis, a few of them did remark that there was beauty in the females’ genitals, even more than one female together. At this I calmly countered with whether two males together would be attractive to females; but most of the males, after giving me a look of disgust, said that was not likely. Are these answers indicative of our society? I say most certainly.
But consider what Bruce Thornton writes in his book Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality. In a section entitled "The Daughters of Earth and Blood," he writes, “All these attributes of women—their emotionalism, unbridled sexual appetite, tendency to appetitive excess, treachery, and trickiness—mean that they are closer than the male to the chaotic forces of nature, to the earth, and the world of beasts” (Thornton 76). Certainly, many would believe Medusa to be a “beast,” but because of the way society thinks and because she is a female (presumably with a vagina), is she not then beautiful? Moreover, menstruation is often a taboo subject with men, although it is directly related to the female genitalia. Thornton also writes, “As with many cultures worldwide, menstrual blood isn’t just disgusting to men, but also is given malign powers due to its primal nature…” (78). Legend has it that Medusa carries blood that is both harmful and healing. The simple fact that Medusa is female capable of giving birth (as with the example of Pegasus), therefore, makes her beautiful.
Still, I believe that the penis does characterize the male. There is no question in that. Freud would agree that the presence of the penis distinguishes the male, and “Nature has, as a precaution, attached…a portion of his narcissism to that particular organ” (Freud, “Fetishism,” S.E. 21:153). A friend of mine, Allan Lerner, even went on to say in class that if “we took his penis away, he may as well be a woman.” Allan would certainly agree with Freud when the psychoanalyst writes, “to display the penis is to say: “I am not afraid of you. I defy you. I have a penis” (Freud 22). However, when in a man’s lifetime would this ever be necessary? How often does a man fear their penis is at stake whenever he sees a portrait or painting of Medusa with the many snakes on her head? I venture to say not many. I believe the gorgon’s body acts as a penis with her head also acting as the head of the penis. In addition, I view Medusa’s mouth as the opening of the penis used by a male when he urinates and ejaculates. When Perseus beheads her, I can see this more as circumcision than as castration, though that is only my personal opinion.
Perhaps Freud secretly wishes that Medusa stay beheaded by Perseus for he fears the disembodied head represents an extreme sexual energy a woman is capable of having. The depiction of a female with these snakes seen as penises all over her head does not sit well with men. According to Freud, the male has always had the female as the center of his sexual desire (unless they were Greek), and from the phallic developmental stage, the male has assumed that women do not have the penis because the father took it away, also part of his castration complex. In it, the young boy shifts his physical desire away from this mother because he is afraid that his father will take away his penis (Freud 22). Even Hélène Cixous echoes this in her essay The Laugh of the Medusa when she writes, “Men say that there are two unrepresentable things: death and the feminine sex. That’s because they need femininity to be associated with death; it’s the jitters that give them a hard-on…too bad for them if they fall apart upon discovering that women aren’t men, or that the mother doesn’t have one” (Cixous 108). So if the penis is a sign of power, then the warriors are actually overcome with jealousy towards Medusa since the "father" (in this case, Athena?) gave more phallic and masculine power to her than he did to the male when her golden locks were turned into stone (www.fsj.nlc.bc.ca/staffpages/pdenoudn/oedipus).
In linking the castration complex with beauty, I look at things a little differently. I would say it is safe to say that the male side of this castration anxiety is the fear of the father chopping off his penis, but the female side of it is penis envy; or the desire to be closer to her father or the attraction to him are subconscious efforts to get this missing “part.” So we know Athena turned Medusa into the gorgon that she is well known to be. And it known that before that happened, Medusa was beautiful and probably flaunted it. I see two elements to a possible penis envy thing here. Medusa’s beauty was very powerful before she got turned into a gorgon. Athena did not approve of what went on in her temple between Neptune and Medusa and had some serious jealousy/penis envy towards Medusa (perhaps because she saw no “action” from Neptune?) As a result, Athena punished Medusa by sentencing her with such "ugliness." Right? No! What Athena did not realize is that she was actually inflaming her own penis envy worse by doing this—Medusa’s power increased because she received that “sought-after” penis. If Freud argues that a male is constantly afraid of losing his penis and the female is seeking it, Athena actually gave Medusa more power, more mental/Freudian "happiness" and "beauty".
In addition, the castration complex in relation to Medusa has been the study of a number of different writers and researchers. Perhaps one of the best novels dealing with Medusa and her relation to Freud’s castration complex is Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head. Specifically, the discussion between Martin and Alexander on page forty-four concerning scalped heads is in my belief a symbol of penises and the castration complex. I found it interesting that Alexander took pleasure in sculpting other people’s heads, in a way showing some sort of fascination with heads in general. Even Martin calls this peculiar hobby of Alexander’s “savage. ” Alexander focuses on the heads rather than the bodies, establishing the Medusa symbol. Interestingly enough, discussion in our HE462 course led to some agreeing with the notion that Martin, in an attempt to develop as a person, was trying to “reassemble Medusa,” though it was clear he was separating Honor Klein in envisioning her as just the Medusa-head, further undermining her feminine or sexual power (credit to Prof. O’Brien). In one example early on in the book, Martin struggles with doing so as he has a hard time relating femininity with Honor when he catches a glimpse of her pantyhose as he is driving her home.
Another author who associates Medusa with the castration complex is John Freccero. Here he links the famous Italian writer Machiavelli to the Medusa myth, as he writes in his essay entitled Medusa and the Madonna, “The sight of Caterina’s genitals also inspires fear, but for very different reasons. Her sex is the proleptic representation of her vengeance, an emblem of political survival through reproductive power” (Ascoli 177). [Earlier on page 169, Freccero explains that Catarina was the Lady of Forlì, “an emblem for the people,” found in chapter twenty of Machiavelli’s The Prince]. The idea of castration with political ties was not new to Machiavelli. In "Macbeth: The Male Medusa," Majorie Garber comments on how James I related to the Medusa myth when he recurred to the image of the King as “head of state.” In a speech to the first English Parliament (19 March 1603) he declared, “I am the Husband, and the whole Isle is my Wife; I am the Head, and it is my body” (Garber 84). Garber writes that the decapitation of head from the body politic was unimaginable to the people James I led, although he did not hesitate to use such language as his own mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was beheaded in public on February 8, 1587” (Garber 85). Not only does this suggest that Medusa could be tied to politics but it also characterizes James I as a sort of “male Medusa.”
In short, the Medusa myth has long been connected to various themes throughout history. Without a doubt, she will forever serve as an example to Freud’s castration complex, but her beauty still radiates if you just step outside the box and really look in. In spite of this magnificence that is argued by some, there remain a significant amount of those who have viewed her as a hideous monster with the ability to turn people into stone—and will always continue to see her that way. Perhaps Hélène Cixous said it best when she wrote, “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing.”
Christian Martin Adrian MartinIris Murdoch, through her narrator Martin, incorporates extensive religious imagery to make A Severed Head another religious text in a series of philosophical writings. These religious allusions and allegories draw from the Bible and Oriental mythology. Iris Murdoch summarizes her religious stance with the terms “neo-Christianity” or “modern Christianity” (Allen 25). In her model, she ‘reduces Christianity to morals’ (Allen 25) by taking away God per say but keeping the images and stories as a framework for morality. “Murdoch [explores] this strain of the new morality with all the most philosophical insights that psychoanalysts, cultural anthropology, iconology, and comparative religion can provide” (Hoy 595). She ‘looks to literature as a guide for the moral life’ (Allen 24) and, therefore, imbues her own literary creations with obvious guidelines. She inundates the text with religious imagery reducing Christian and other religious stories to unembellished literature, which she considers ideal material with which to examine morality.
Her narrator, Martin, although a professed atheist, defies his faithlessness through repeated religious allusion. Biblical connotations and images infuse Martin’s words with his religious fixation. Honor, his Medusa-esque enchantress, recognizes this influence on him and accuses him of “Being a Christian,” and of “[connecting] spirit with love”(Murdoch 96). Her keen observations and influences intensify the large influence she has in Martin’s religious development. However, before denouncing Martin by his dependence on form, recognize Murdoch’s own dependence on it: her three formulaic groups – ‘enchanters, observers, and accomplices – make up a scheme symptotic of the author’s failure to break away from the tyranny of form. Though she produces many people, each is tightly controlled in a superimposed design, each rigidly cast in a classical Murdochian role’ (Kuehl 347). The book traces Martin’s maturation, but the included religious references also make this progress a spiritual one. Iris herself ‘sees religion… as a different [mode] of picturing “human life”’ (Antonaccio 322). It is one of many tools she possesses, but the indoctrination of Christian symbols in Western audiences makes the tool especially effective.
In addition, Iris Murdoch addresses Oriental themes and mythology. However, the specifics of Orientalism as viewed from this book make it an over-simplified summary of a complex topic. As argued by Edward Said, there are three important definitions with which to consider Orientalism: ‘First, Orientalism creates an artificial idea of “otherness” out of several non-Christian cultures within the Asian and African continents. Second, but connected with the first idea, Orientalism provides an essential model of dichotomous interaction between Oriental and Occidental monoliths. Third, Orientalism asserts power over the “other” through the knowledge of it – or even through the mere belief of the knowledge of it’(Fox 1 and Said). Consider these attributes – especially that Orientalism can be defined simply as non-Christian. For the sake of this paper, specific images and examples will not be considered or examined – instead, I will establish Orientalism as non-Christianism or “otherness.”
The use of existing symbols instead of painting elaborate descriptions emphasizes the importance of representation. It is not a person’s physical beauty, for instance, which determines their attractiveness or God-figure suitability; another’s symbolic projection of them enshrines them instead. Therefore, the unattractive Honor can become the most attractive figure for Martin because of her respective symbolism.
There are over sixty religious references in A Severed Head – all recounted by Martin, the narrator. Often his religious imagery vividly describes his condition. For instance, Martin describes himself to Honor in a moment of defeat with, “I’m a broken reed after all” (Murdoch 95). Qualifying this statement retrospectively as “vague” and yet “powerful,” he admits to some deeper (yet unconscious) significance to his choice of wording. The word reed itself appears twenty-seven times in the Bible, making the Bible the probable source of the word’s connotation. Often it appears in the Bible as a gauge and measurement of strength, known throughout Isaiah as a “measuring reed.” By this connotation, a broken reed would be a symbol of impotence or spiritual weakness. Jesus uses it even to describe a person thought to be broken down and subdued as, “A reed shaken with the wind…” (Luke 7:24). Weak and subdued, Martin applies Biblical references (perhaps unconsciously) to describe his defeated state.
In addition, other sources supply ideas and images. In fact, ‘The background for A Severed Head seems taken primarily from Oriental mythology and literature’ (German 361) though the images are mostly Christian. The resulting conflict between Western images and an Eastern background qualify Martin’s perspective and the ‘victimhood’ he portrays (by the definition of this paper, a conflict between Christian and non- Christian.) In contrast to Martin’s character, ‘Miss Murdoch has never admired suffering; she admires most those who refuse to suffer, who can dispossess the dead, who know that personal relationships change, who go on however they can’ (Kencey 377). Martin at the end of the novel better meets Murdoch’s standards when he cuts ties with his wife and mistress and starts over. However, his conflicted state at the beginning and resulting inaction make him a Murdochian example of a weak character and a morally- dubious narrator.
Despite the range of religious description he depends on, Martin claims that he holds “no religious beliefs whatsoever” (Murdoch 14). Before taking his dismissal of religion at face value, consider his parallel character, Charles in The Sea, the Sea. Charles describes himself as ‘not a churchgoer’ (Tucker 385). Charles even ‘seems to regard [Christianity] as an adolescent pursuit that people outgrow with the coming of adulthood’ (Tucker 385). Similar to Martin’s use of Christian imagery to express ideas and describe action, James, another character in The Sea, the Sea, provides the examples from ‘Buddhism that [determine] the means by which we are to interpret the action, and it is Buddhism that illuminates some of the mystery inherent in these actions’ (Tucker 385). Accordingly, ‘we cannot take Charles’s quick dismissal of religion at face value, for the religious question does not go away’ (Tucker 385.) Furthermore, Charles, ‘while disposing with conventional religious contrasts, does not free himself from the numinous energy expressed in a god figure’ (Tucker 385). This lingering adherence to a God figure parallels Martin’s deification of Antonia, Palmer, Georgie, and Honor. As she often does, Iris Murdoch here recycles one character’s dilemma and religious position in another character. One explanation is that ‘Murdoch does not create characters. She creates symbols. The symbols have name, but no one remembers the names’(Harrison 26). Again we see the importance of symbolism and its universality (as opposed to the potential narrowness of description and scenery.) Therefore, Martin himself is not important. He quickly melts into a soup of other characters with similar dilemmas and ideas. However, the religious struggle and symbolism links all the characters to achieve a philosophical end.
Martin’s claimed atheism taints his actions and views, emphasizing the important connection between religion and morality. As expected, he, therefore, “[does] not think that the marriage bond [is] uniquely sacred” (Murdoch 14). A marriage in the Church before God makes a strong statement religiously about the pair’s commitment to each other; however, his marriage occurs in a Church largely for social reasons. Iris Murdoch would consider his discounting of this fundamental Christian ceremony to be immoral not because he ignores God (whose existence she even questions) but because he dismisses the universally moral foundation of the marriage sacrament. This casual impropriety seems irreverent, and his empty actions are symptoms of his unfulfilled feelings. Martin, despite his consuming need for fulfillment, nonetheless faces decisions and troubles that challenge his morality:
The themes are familiar: destiny and choice, goodness and wildness, action and contemplation are set against one another; the question of whether or not, God being dead, one should continue to behave as though God existed is discussed, and various Freudian and Christian patterns of love are presented. (Drabble 89)
He faces all these questions, but the most frightening possibility is whether (as God is vacant from his life) he has any reason to nonetheless be morally righteous. The possibility appears at the end of the novel again when Honor asks Martin, “Do you know the story of Gyges and Caddalus?” (Murdoch 204). A version of this story by Plato, entitled, “The Ring of Gyges” raises the questions: “Why be moral at all? If we can lie and steal with impunity then why be moral? If our good deeds sometimes go unrewarded or even unrecognized, then why be moral?” These questions are fundamental to establishing a code of ethics as Murdoch tries to. Therefore, these are questions that must tempt her characters.
His moral leniency models society’s inverted moral hierarchy:A Severed Head depicts a culture in which good manners “have assumed the air of a major virtue.” Individuals are encouraged to be civilized and rational; they are praised for behaving well when others impose on them. Behavior is defined by roles and judged, it at all, by the rather flexible rules of society. (German 361).
An unbridled societal critic, Iris Murdoch cannot pass up the opportunity to vilify the society Martin represents by his immorality. Here Iris Murdoch uses his atheism as an opportunity to stress the importance of religion in morality. In an interview, she stresses: “I think people must make an effort to retain Christianity, but in a non-literal form, as it were – not having to believe in God as a person or that Christ was divine, but to believe in everything that Christ meant” (Cowley 15). Christ represents legitimate moral guidelines that she admires, but she stresses that, “It is quite possible to have a kind of teaching of religion which is not just meant for Christians” (Cowley 15). Therefore, Martin’s weakness is not his disloyalty to God; the weakness lies with what comes to replace the force for morality in his life. Iris Murdoch ‘[has] the ultimate intention of placing Good in the logical place previously occupied by God’(Allen 25). However, Martin fails to replace God with Good, and he instead substitutes a false ideology (equivalent to the false idols that plagued the Old Testament leaders.) Murdoch hopes to separate morality from religion; she ‘[seeks] to refine and animate a secular morality’ (Cowley 15). However, Christian imagery and ideology is a wonderful starting point for many, especially those already indoctrinated in the religious system. As a philosopher developing a system of ethics, her use of imagery becomes like any other author’s stealing (that is, building upon) the great ideas of another. Realistically, though, her system competes with God, religion, and society, so she must attributes of the dominant ethical shareholders to appeal to potential followers.
Martin’s disenchantment marks the beginning of a common Murdochian pattern, preparing him for the deification of Honor:
Because those who are enchanted need to see others as embodiments of myths and emotional patterns that elude their own lives, Iris Murdoch’s major characters must undergo a sever disenchantment, often painful, such as that provoked by a figure like Honor Klein, to awaken them out of their self-deluding spell (Sullivan 276).
For Martin the disenchantment creates a need for love (his self-deluding spell) with a power unique to religion and new to him. “I wanted, to save me, some colossal and powerful love such as I had never known before” (Murdoch 54). Love as a saving force here almost resembles the Christian ideal of caritas, if it does not directly stem from it in the novel. The Gospels portray the love Jesus speaks of as a conquering power over hatred, resentment, and pain with, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44). Though Martin does not feel this love or live by it, his background has indoctrinated him to recognize it and yearn for it. However, Iris Murdoch refuses to simply propagandize for Christianity: she describes “Christian stories [as] enlivening spiritual images” (Allen 25). Instead of advocating a specific religion, Martin’s need for love reduces to a common theme in her novels: "Miss Murdoch’s pervasive theme has been the quest for a passion beyond and center of self. What her characters seek may go by the name of Love or God of the Good." (Bromwich). Though God may not exist for Martin, the framework and artistic legacy have created a place for him that does and must exist. He needs something to fulfill that place. “God does not and cannot exist. But what led us to conceive of him does exist, and it is constantly experienced and pictured” (Cowley 16).
Martin, at the beginning of the novel, needs significant personal growth. He, however, feels that his life could not get better. He has everything that he wants to possess – both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. Knowing Iris Murdoch, however, this false peace and fulfillment of false values must be quickly dismantled. In ‘“The Darkness of Practical Reason,” an essay reviewing the ideas in Stuart Hampshire’s “Freedom of the Individual,” Murdoch insists that the mediocre man “who achieves what he intends is not the ideal of a free man,” thereby implying once again the existence of a scale of values in perception and in the ability to conceive’ (Gerstberger 13).’ Martin is that mediocre man with mediocre intentions who achieves his false ideology – a state Murdoch does not condone.
Consider, for instance, the idolatrous descriptions of his wife and mistress:
[The ménages depicting Martin and his wife and Martin and his mistress], both significantly lighted with firelight and candles, [are] a version of [Plato’s] Cave. In each, Martin makes icons of shadow-deities: himself and the woman…. Martin perceives Antonia, with her graying gold hair and her great tawny eyes, as being “like some rich gilded object,”… which he is fortunate to possess. Gold, symbolic of the firelight and candlelight, also symbolic of idolatrous worship, is used pervasively throughout the first half of the novel. The half-light of the Cave provides a golden glamour only gradually dispelled… (Gossman 93).
Martin has reduced his relationships into simple, photo-capturable symbols.
Later we witness an ironic exchange between Martin and Alexander, which gravitates to religious icons:
Alexander has done a gold-bronze head of Antonia- just the sort of icon one would expect Martin to want. Though he concedes that “The best thing about being God would be making the heads,” he mistrusts Alexander’s playing God and denying the body… (Gossman 94).
Here Martin ironically takes a moral stand on the simplification of a person into a limited symbol, while his relationships with people depend on his false symbol-ridden ideology. However, this conversation occurs after the dismantling of his marriage and the first shaking of his perspective on life.
Martin’s idolatrous worshipping of his wife and mistress are not isolated examples of deification. Throughout the novel,
the characters are shown as creating their own patterns, their own forms, manufacturing false Gods that eventually destroy them. In the intricate series of switches in the novel, they consistently fabricate a God out of another character and what he represents, fashion the metaphors and truths they try and are unable to live by (Gindin 357).
The motivation for this maddening process is fundamental. ‘Man’s interest in structure is in Miss Murdoch’s novels, part of his interest in precision, in defining himself and his world. Almost all the characters in the novel seek some form of definition, some means of coherently explaining what they are…’ (Gindin 178). For many people in Murdoch’s society, defining oneself by another person or one’s accomplishments (especially after the Industrial Age) was easier than establishing some kind of internal definition.
Martin’s struggle with this process takes him through various stages and idols. Temporarily, Palmer and Antonia fulfill the classical model of gods and goddesses. Martin identifies them as “Ares and Aphrodite,” thereby making himself the cuckolded “Hephaestus” (Murdoch 107). Established as victim to other gods, Martin loses touch with his former identity. His inability to maintain himself as an idol in his life initiates an oppressive subordination to the other two gods. This continual deification gives an alternative, literal meaning to Honor’s claim: “I believe in people,” whereby people are deities (Murdoch 97).
Then Martin succumbs to his “dark gods” (Murdoch 64). When he succumbs to his inner demons and violence, he directs his energy at Honor. Wrestling with her in the basement, he pins religious connotation to the situation. This scene resembles Jacob wrestling with the angel in Exodus, and Martin has the mysterious sense “as if he had not really touched her” (Murdoch 110). However, the angel touches Jacob, “And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh…And he said, ‘I will not let thee go, except thou bless me’” (Genesis 32:25-26). Martin describes his fight with Honor as a “sacrilegious occasion” in which her identity as an angel is hidden by “a cloak,” her former repulsiveness (Murdoch 110), but this strange experience leaves him unfulfilled: “What I really wanted was to…find myself at once in Honor’s presence” (Murdoch 127). As a narrator, he exposes his disappointment through the contrasting resolutions of the matches. Jacob receives a blessing; Martin fervently writes empty apologies trying to justify his actions. However, Honor does not desire a bland formality; she, like the angel, tests and learns about Martin during the struggle. Because she realizes his nature, his reaction disappoints her. Martin’s formality adheres to convention and politeness, the opposites of the wild animism she embodies and that his rage tends towards. Returning to the conflict between East and West, his viewpoint represents the West’s suppressing conventions while Honor (being the non-West view) portrays a freeing from conventions. This struggle, though, develops on a religious level because of the imagery he uses; without the frame of reference he encourages, the scene would hold far less significance. His adherence to religious symbolism gives this match meaning and vividness; it develops the conflict between East and West into a not-winnable contest of wills.
As Honor and Western society represent uncompromising viewpoints, He can only develop himself in stages. He starts with the society-fashionable Antonia, who represents one extreme. Then Georgie becomes his ideal bride, but she is still too Western (though more liberated – or, at least, deluded into feeling that way.) Martin deifies Honor last. Honor has a significant role in Martin’s development; she challenges his religious reference frame and his identity. He compares his arrival at her table to “an arrival at the shrine of some remote and self-absorbed deity” (Murdoch 93). Here he becomes an animal facing sacrifice for God or a disciple approaching the table for the Last Supper. However, as in Jacob’s story, Honor does not fulfill the expectations created:
Ordinarily, her characters do not exemplify set ideas; rather, the incidents and the relationships of her characters with each other provide illustrations of her ideas or variations upon them. As a result, her fiction is truly symbolical in its ramifications and only intermittently allegorical (McDowell 421).
Therefore, his Christian expectations cannot match reality allegorically because the adaptation is not with another person of similar expectations. Instead, the plots develop between Christian Martin and non-Christian Honor. Instead of a last supper (in fact they sit over the remnants of Palmer and Antonia’s meal,) the two explore the religious power of violence. Instead of the Bible’s events, wherein Isaac gets a reprieve from sacrifice (and Abraham’s knife) at the shrine, we see the full exercise of the sword’s power.
The sword takes on a power of its own: “In Japan these swords are practically religious objects. They are forged not only with great care but with great reverence. And the use of them is not merely an art but a spiritual exercise” (Murdoch 96). Honor challenges Western Martin with her Eastern sword-wielding. He leaves the world of Christian imagery and faces a world not based on love and propriety, which represent the religion and society to which he has grown accustomed; instead, he faces not-love and not propriety – perhaps Murdoch’s idealized Good? Honor’s faith is a “[belief] in people” (Murdoch 97). However, this vague assertion does not clarify anything for Martin, who might mistake her to support deifying (believing in) people. As someone who lives dependent on his own falsely perceived comfort, she symbolizes a strong (and contrasting) connection to the real. He recoils from her ideas, claiming, “I am not attracted by the idea of decapitating people as a spiritual exercise” (Murdoch 96). His recoiling makes his religious and social obstinacy obvious. How, after all, is he even to envision what she represents he only recognizes her “otherness,” not-love, and her non-propriety? The contrast between Honor’s viewpoint and Christianity is too much to reconcile immediately. Consequently, instead of accommodating her by changing his imagery, he re-casts this Samurai sword-wielder as a Mary figure. He also tries to make her a “Hebrew angel” (Murdoch 182). However, she actually represents something very different. In fact,
all [Murdoch’s] novels include one or more God-images, characters of wisdom and insight to whom the other characters turn for advice… But the God-figure never really works in the structure of the novel. The advice turns out to be wrong, or the God-figure never means at all what the character thought he meant or the God-figure himself is equally perplexed (Gindin 178).
Similarly, Honor is actually incredibly different from the Christian imagery that Martin cloaks her with. She even believes that she represents for Martin a “severed head,” an object of fascination for “primitive tribes and old alchemists,” who even believed them to “utter prophesies” (Murdoch 182). This suggestion proves his inability to grasp her; since she is only defined as not-what-he-knows, she could well be a “talking head” or any other possibility.
Nonetheless, Martin fights all the possible projections of her. Having stripped her of her Western “cloak” in the basement tussle, he tries to cover her again with Christian religious imagery. However, with time her work becomes a “revelation” (Murdoch 100). He craves the power of her “presence” (Murdoch 127). Incapable of grasping her power, “vast across my way as… the spread wings of Satan,” he struggles with her as a potentially destructive influence (Murdoch 14). Relating to Satan, the fallen angel, describes both the temptation she poses and the rejection by his Christian background of what she represents - as God rejected Lucifer – (Eder 8) by his Christian background. As his fascination grows, he begins to see her repulsive nakedness as “angelic” (Murdoch 138) as what she symbolizes becomes more acceptable. Having established that physical attractiveness is irrelevant when compared to symbolic attractiveness, she becomes acceptable entirely by his change of perspective.
Throughout Martin’s interactions with Honor, symbolic religious change matches his perspective’s development. Their meeting at the tables (when Honor yields the sword) includes the ringing of bells to symbolize the approaching New Year. First he hears the “very distant peal of Church bells” (Murdoch 96). Then he refers to the “church bells [continuing their mathematical jargoning” (Murdoch 97). Finally, he “realized that the church bells had become silent and it was the New Year” (Murdoch 98). Absorbed in his moment with her, he neglects a major transition. Herein the Church’s jargoning cannot compete with her lessons; there is a definite reprioritizing. She, the spiritual experience of the sword, and his deification of her supplant the church’s appeals.
A stage before his deification of Honor involved a potential self-deification with a Jesus-like construction of Martin. Specifically, it begins with the idea of saving. The idea of saving appears in Martin’s recount of Palmer’s therapy for him in his office, “[His] irony in assuming the role of an ‘angel of compassion’ will be the saving of all three of [them]”(Murdoch 31). This reference connects Jesus to the story. This connection is very powerful because, as Iris Murdoch claims, “Man is a creature who makes a picture of himself and then comes to resemble the picture” (Antonaccio 320). Therefore, Martin must take on the role and attributes that he pictures himself in. Also, our perception must be entirely ground in symbolism if we imagine in terms of pictures and then try to live the picture. Essentially, life imitates art.We identify Jesus by his mission: “He shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Similarly, Martin’s compassion will save Antonia, Palmer, and himself from their web of sins. Compassion itself plays a large role in the Bible; there are fourteen instances in the Gospel of Jesus’ compassion. This pattern connects to the idea of God developed in five of the Psalms: God as a God of compassion. The text’s reference to Martin as an angel of compassion connects him to an image of Jesus. When declared an angel, Martin becomes an agent of God acting on God’s behalf as Jesus does. Though Martin does not embody a religious character or a person worthy of such description, in his account, he portrays himself as such. This attempt at self-deification, however, does not last.
Martin does not use himself exclusively as a Jesus figure. He recognizes that “[he] had enjoyed but never had to pay. But someone had paid,” in his affair with Georgie (Murdoch 173). Georgie suffers in the relationship, bearing the trauma of abortion. Georgie feels that, “stopping being free… for me that’s stopping existing” (104). Therefore, Martin’s lies and her captivity are a death to her. Martin claims responsibility for that death and the suicide attempt with, “I had killed her” (Murdoch 173). In the end she has to die for the sins of abortion and of their adultery. In contrast, “[Martin] got off with extraordinary ease” (Murdoch 13). Her payment with death makes her a Jesus figure dying for the sins of others, especially the unworthy Martin. This sacrifice seems like the only possible solution to the evil and immorality of their lives:
In addition to themes from Job and Plato, a central idea in “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” is taken from Simone Weil, a modern French philosopher who influences a number of Iris Murdoch’s earlier works. Evil, in Simone Weil’s thought, spreads and flourishes in the world as it is passed from victim to victim in the form of suffering. A victim of evil finds relief from his own suffering most easily by causing suffering in others; in this manner, a single evil act may pass from person to person in an endless chain… The chain of evil can be broken only by one who is willing to sacrifice himself in Christ-like fashion, to absorb the evil and suffering into himself without yielding to the temptation of causing others to suffer. (Rabinovitz 1, 28).
Georgie indeed breaks this chain and brings about a myriad of resurrection and birth allusions.
Extending the Jesus metaphor, Martin assigns the same role to Georgie when he and Honor find her body. He describes the lifting of Georgie into Honor’s arms: “The two women composed for me… an eerie pieta” (Murdoch 175). Honor takes on the role of Mary in this scene, and her gentle care for Georgie connects Honor closely to Mary. However, as mentioned earlier, the Mary role does not suit Eastern Honor. Nonetheless, as Martin reaches out to touch Georgie, he feels a “shiver of connexion… as in an electrical current… between Honor’s hand and mine” (Murdoch 175). During the basement scene earlier and repeatedly, he feels incapable of touching her, but he connects to the holy figure here through Georgie’s sacrifice. Georgie’s sacrifice provides a complete absolution to Martin, covering the depth and wealth of his sins throughout the book.
The hospital scene is a birth and resurrection for Georgie’s Jesus role. Martin claims the room has “the atmosphere of Christmas Day in the nursery” (Murdoch 176). A nursery can hold both animals and young children. Christianity’s Nativity Scene incorporates these two examples of a nursery with a baby Jesus and animals all resting together on the original Christmas Day. The descriptions of colorful toys and presents allude to the gifts of the Magi. The supplicants, Martin, Alexander, and Palmer, represent the Three Kings. For Georgie all three men have a deeper significance; they all are her kings at a certain points in the novel. Also present at this resurrecting birth is Honor, Georgie’s Mary figure. The contrasting presence in this scene is Antonia, who has a strange reaction to the events:
Antonia had been positively rejuvenated by the news of Georgie’s attempt. On hearing of it she had completely cast aside her listless and defeated air. After three days of exhilaration and excitement she looked distinctly handsomer and like her old self. Yesterday she had bought three hats. (Murdoch 176).
Admittedly, Jesus’ resurrection invigorates the hiding and downtrodden apostles. However, Antonia’s frivolity in buying hats eliminates such a parallel. Instead, this irreverence establishes the growing contrast between her and Martin, who has a contrasting reaction to the scene: “I was hollow” (Murdoch 177). In this scene’s context, Antonia’s sacrilege becomes offensive. In contrast, Martin surrenders his irreverent position. Originally, he describes himself as “[having] the face of someone laughing at something tragic” (Murdoch 15). Similarly, he and Antonia once share congruous religious views: “Antonia, like me, has no religion,” he claims (Murdoch 17). As part of the Nativity Scene, though, Martin develops a religious role while she seems out of place. Despite Martin and everyone’s best efforts to play their idealized religious roles, all the characters remain imperfect. This emphasizes Murdoch’s view of a non-divine Christ with extraordinary moral and social ideas. The aforementioned chain of evil nonetheless breaks, but there is no need for immortal participants to break that chain.
Martin’s “religiosity” (to steal a term Martin uses on page seventeen to mockingly describe Antonia’s idea of a “communion of souls”) does not come easily or quickly. From the beginning, Honor recognizes a struggle within him against violence. She believes that he will surrender to the temptation he suppresses; after all, she says, “You cannot cheat the dark gods” (Murdoch 64). However, Martin’s Christianity counters such a claim. Temptation by demons can be thwarted and avoided; after all, the demons tempt him with power, one of the refused temptations of Jesus by the devil. He must only surrender the “fruitless movement of will and power” inherent in violence to effectively cheat the dark gods (Murdoch 34). However, Martin has not developed enough spiritually or morally, resulting in their violent confrontation. Murdoch would make the same argument from a pro-Good standpoint. Violence and “dark gods” are anti-Good.
Some remaining loose ends suggest a discord between two Western characters (to contrast the novel’s traditional East vs. West mentality.) Adding to the missing Jacobian blessing, Martin again loses a kind of blessing to his brother, Alexander. Their relationship closely resembles the Biblical one between Jacob and Esau. Georgie first introduces their relationship with, “You said you always used to pass your girls on to him, because he couldn’t get any of his own” (Murdoch 10). However, she later questions Martin with, “Are you sure it wasn’t that he always took them away from you?” Martin admits to the fact that Alexander continually steals his women away from him. Antonia’s confession of her affair with Alexander adds her to a list including Georgie and other women from the past. Martin does not take the news well: “It was as if Alexander had done something to the whole of my past, to years, which stretched far back, beyond my marriage, into the nursery, into the womb” (Murdoch 195). Furthermore, the womb reference connects to the births of twins Jacob and Esau: “And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob” (Genesis 25:26). Alexander and Martin reverse the birth order of Jacob and Esau. Martin also already has a reference tying him to Jacob; however, he has something to lose and Alexander to gain, as did the Jacob at Esau’s expense. Alexander’s betrayal seems as complete as Esau’s losing both his birthright and his blessing. In this case, Martin loses the blessing of his women.
The Jacob and Esau parallels also connect Martin and Alexander’s mother. Martin believes that it was his brother, “that he in whom, more than any other, my mother lived again so quietly and so relentlessly have defrauded me cast a shadow that was like a scar upon an innocence of the past which I believed to be impregnable” (Murdoch 195). Their mother favors Alexander the way that Rebekah favors Jacob. Furthermore, Martin connects his mother to the defrauding, and this thought horrifies him and ends his innocence. Furthermore, his mother takes on the relentless nature of Rebehah in continually looking for ways to place Jacob above Esau. Martin surrenders to Alexander with the resolution, “My wife is going to marry my brother” (Murdoch 192). This gracious gesture of forgiveness matches Esau’s resolution: “And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself” (Genesis 33:9). Martin masters the virtue of forgiveness and overcomes jealousy to give up Antonia when he admits that there is “no substitute for the utterly taken-for-granted relationship” (Murdoch 185). Furthermore, at that point he has no relationship whatsoever to take, leaving him independent for the first time. Finally, Martin has the opportunity to refuse suffering, accept reality, and move on with his life. The Jacob and Esau discord finally severs Martin’s connection to the West. This internal Christian battle suggests that the mystery and possibilities of the East are worth risking, considering the failure of Martin’s system of false ideology.
Martin describes the airport scene as a “waiting room for the Last Judgment” (Murdoch 196). Honor, Palmer, and Georgie are the official reviewing party for this judgment. He describes this Trinity as “a trio of heads” (Murdoch 198). Palmer and Georgie (perhaps God and Jesus) leave together (to New York City instead of Heaven,) but Honor, who plays the role of the mortal Mary and the Holy Spirit-like role of an angel, remains. Martin describes that she “looked… touchingly mortal” (Murdoch 198). He senses her “demon splendour quenched,” (198) as she becomes less distant or fantastical. At their reunion, Martin finally receives the blessing he seeks, and “worshipped her closeness” (Murdoch 205). The limitations of the wrestling scene vanish as he can finally touch her. No longer does Martin deify Honor or struggle to Christianize her symbolic representation to him. He sees her remarkably as herself. ‘As one Buddhist text expresses it, “When thou hast understood the dissolution of all the ‘fabrications’ thou shalt understand that which is not fabricated”’ (Tucker 388).
His personal development as a character brings us through a philosophical development. What kind of hero does he develop into? He does not become ‘the existentialist hero of Twentieth Century literature, who was “the new version of the romantic man, the man of power, abandoned by God, struggling on bravely, sincerely, and alone”’(Antonaccio 319). Instead, Iris Murdoch prefers ‘the mystical hero was “the new version of the man of faith, believing in goodness without religious guarantees, guilty, muddled, yet not without hope”’ (Antonaccio 319). At the end of the novel, Martin and Honor’s surrendering to unknown possibilities marks the cutting of ties to conventions (especially the dominant Christian images) and accepting that, “You must take your chance!” (Murdoch 205).
However, before finding too strong a pattern from her religious symbolism, remember the reaction of
a reviewer [who] remarked, that if one is going to deal in symbols, then the symbols must symbolize something. If that symbol is so elusive as to defeat all attempts at interpretation, then we are indeed left with a conjurer’s bag of tricks; we have been entertained, but we have also been had. (Harrison 26).
With Iris Murdoch, the possibility always exists that she has fooled us into believing something while it all means something different. Such is the nature of her genius and her trickster habits. Consider that:
In Miss Murdoch’s first four novels, the God-figure was set against the idea of simple, spontaneous, unstructured creature. The God figure, connected all man’s machinations to achieve some sort of structure and permanence, was mocked, was demolished comically as a futile though understandable fabrication. But the idea of the creature, the formless center of the human being, remained inviolate. A Severed Head makes even that possibility ludicrous. The God-figure, loss systematic, crystallizes and implicitly satirizes the idea of the creature. The creature is, after all, the id, and Miss Murdoch, in inflating the id to a mock God-figure and endowing it with samurai swords, relentless force, and an excessive knowledge of human relationships, mocks the very faith in the creature that pervaded her earlier novels. (Gindin)
With her continually inverting her past work, it becomes difficult to find and trust a pattern. However, her writing exhibits a growth and development of ideas; therefore, it might be best to suspend disbelief and watch the process. As noted above, A Severed Head undoes and mocks some of her earlier efforts. Perhaps her remaining novels similarly admonish this effort.
Unfortunately, Iris Murdoch died in Oxford, England, in 1999. Fortunately, she managed to compile her Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals before completely overcome by Alzheimer’s disease.
Bibliography
Allen, Diogenes. Pinch-Hitting for God: A Review of Metaphysics as Morals.
Commonweal. 23 April 1993 P24-25.Antonaccio, Maria, “The Virtues of Metaphysics: A Review of Iris Murdoch’s
Philosophical Writings.” Journal of Religious Ethics. 2001. 24:2:309-335.Bromwich, David. New York Times Book Review. August 24, 1975.
Cowley, Jason, “A Divine Literary Intelligence,” an interview with Iris Murdoch.
New Statesman: 12 February 1999 P15-16.Dipple, Elizabeth, Iris Murdoch: Work for the Spirit. University of
Chicago Press, 1982. 356 P1-8.Drabble, Margaret. “Gothic Hollywood,” The Listener. January 17, 1974. P89.
Eder, Richard, “The Conjuring Magic of Murdoch,” Los Angeles Times Book
Review, July 3, 1983, P2,8.Fox, Collin. “Orientalism.” HH507 paper.
German, Howard, “Allusions in the Early Novels of Iris Murdoch.” Modern
Fiction Studies 1969, Vol XV, No. 3 Autumn 1969 P361-377.Gerstberger, Donna. Iris Murdoch. Bucknell University Press, 1975. P13-15.
Gindin, James. Harvest of a Quiet Eye: The Novel of Compassion.
Indiana University Press, 1971. P346-348.Gindin, James. “Images of Illusion in the Works of Iris Murdoch.” British
Fiction: New Accents and Attitudes. University of California Press
1962. P178-195.Gossman, Ann. “Icons and Idols in Murdoch’s A Severed Head,” Critique:
Studies in Modern Fiction. Vol. XVIII, No. 3, 1977 P92-97Harrison, Barbara Corizzuti, “Moral Checkmate,” 1974 Saturday Review
World October 5, 1974 P 24-26Hoy, Cyrus, “Homage to Dame Iris Murdoch.” Sewanne Review. Fall 99
Vol. 107, Issue 4, P595Kencey, Jr., Edwin J. “Psychoanalyst, Heal Thyself!” The Nation. March
29, 1975 P377-379.Kuehl, Linda, “Iris Murdoch: The Novelist as Magician/ The Magician as
Artist.” Modern Fiction Vol XV, No 3, Autumn 1969 P347-360.McDowell, Fredrick P.W. Contemporary Literature Vol. II, No 3.
University of Wisconsin, 1970 P 421.Rabinovitz, Rubin. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers (No. 34.)
Columbia University Press, 1968.Rabinovitz, Rubin. New York Times Book Review. February 8, 1970. P1,28.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage Books, New York 1978.
Sullivan, Zohreh Towakuli, “Enchantment and the Demonic in Iris
Murdoch: The Flight of the Enchanter”. The Midwest Quarterly
Kansas State College of Pittsburgh Spring, 1975. P276-297Tucker, Lindsey, “Released from Bonds: Iris Murdoch’s Two Prosperos in
The Sea, the Sea,” Contemporary Literature XXVII, 3 University of
Wisconsin, 1986.
Worshiping Medusa Irish MageeI want my Eden back. Who took it from me? Where did it go? How can I reclaim it? Who will help me?
In this world of industry and technology we have yet to get our Eden back. Have we not suffered enough, worked enough, and prayed enough? But what if our forefathers who wanted power instead of peace denied the Eden to us? This would complicate many of our modern views of religion and the whole hierarchy of the western world.
Medusa symbolizes the strength of women. She has taken many forms and is finally emerging from her long awaited sleep after her burial by the tongues of men and their predecessors. Women will rise again to their rightful spot next to men. Eden will emerge again. With the help of figures like Medusa and the mother goddess, females will finally create their own destinies and nurture their children uninhibited by the stereotypical masculine education to which we have all succumbed.
Through all my Christian teachings and subjection to that institution called “the church” I thought I was doing very well for myself. Yet was I? Was I really working towards the right direction, one that would inspire me to be a better human being in the natural sense? One that loves and nurtures her children, loves her body and mind, and inspires others to do the same for themselves?
Medusa has an enlightening character in mythology, whose struggle seems like a martyr's tale. The “thought of her” and the “essence of her” live within each woman, making her real and not just fiction. Whether studying the Olympian gods and goddesses, watching the movie “Clash of the Titans,” or listening to a recent commercial about hair products on the radio, you will run into Medusa. She has similar roles in most of these productions, based upon one source, Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
Medusa has become very real to many feminists as well as myself who feel as though she has been ill-used and miss treated by the male dominated culture of yesterday and today. She encompasses more then a Perseus or Zeus, praised for their heroic deeds and for their masculine courage. She captured the soul of womankind. Yet, she has been made to subordinate herself to men, as many women have been made to throw off their powerful roles and live in the shadow of a male. Medusa lives in the shadow of Perseus, her mythological husband.
Medusa has many names as well as forms. In the ancient times there existed only one female goddess. This goddess was the giver of all life and was worshipped as the mother to all. Her powers were not used to thwart other tribes but to labor upon the earth and to hunt the game that she provided. Later, around the Ice Age several other goddesses were used to describe this one, ancient goddess. Medusa, in the form of the Great Triple Goddess of the Amazons and the Snake goddess of Minoan Crete and Libya, emerged around 1600 BC. She is referred to by all of these names in this paper. There are many direct correlations between all of these forms of the Mother Goddess and their ultimate fates.
As the views of women changed throughout the ancient world, the view of Medusa also changed. Before the use of metal as weaponry, around the Copper and Bronze age, the ancient societies were mostly agricultural. This meant that most worship was to nature and to gods and goddesses associated with the earth, like Medusa. Female goddesses were worshiped extensively because of their link to reproduction and the fruitfulness of the earth, which the people lived on.
As patriarchy came into existence and wisdom and power were shown through physical means (the stronger you were showed how powerful, important, and useful you were to the settlement). The fruits of war were more bounteous compared to the fruits of laboring the ground. The acquisition of land and resources such as watering holes, migrating game, and copper and bronze became the soul survival of a tribe and a nation. Who was supposed to fight these battles with neighboring communities? While the women stayed at home, the men, the disposable ones, fought.
Unfortunately, “Women…became a resource, acquired by men as the land was acquired by men” (Gadon). They were traded as spoils of war. The women produced male children, which would later fight for their family’s land. Thus, the women were horded in order for men to have more and more male children who would fight. “Their sexual and reproductive capacities were commodified-traded, leased, or sold in the interest of male family members.” (Gadon) Thus, powerful goddesses became subjugate to there male counterparts to mirror and solidify the patriarchal society. The Mother goddess was still praised, however, her role became less important compared to the role of male war gods.
Although it is unclear exactly why the societies started fighting and warring with each other in the first place, several speculations exist. In the picture, “Rape of the Sabine Women,” you can see that the women are praying to their gods and the men are ripping them away from their elderly fathers and children. This shows the type of pillaging that occurred in the name of the survival of a nation:
The Roman state had become strong enough to hold its own in war with all the peoples along its borders, but a shortage of women meant that its greatness was fated to last for a single generation, since there was no prospect of offspring at home nor any prospect of marriage with their neighbors. Then, in accordance with the decision of the senate, Romulus sent messengers to the neighboring peoples to ask for alliance and the right of marriage for the new people…But nowhere were the emissaries given a fair hearing…The youth of Rome took this insult badly and began to think seriously about the use of force. Romulus, to gain time till he found the right occasion, hid his concern and prepared to celebrate the Consualia, the solemn games in honor of equestrian Neptune…the entire Sabine population came, wives and children included… When it was time for the show, and everybody was concentrating on this, a prearranged signal was given and all the Roman youths began to grab the women.”(uky)
The women were forced to stay in Rome and have children with their captors, whom they eventually began to love. This shows that women became objects instead of the major part of the circle of life. They were scene as inferior to men because they could not defend themselves. It is also interesting that the god Neptune, Poseidon, was being honored at the festival in which all of the women were taken. This relates back to the Greek story of Medusa.
The most widely known story of Medusa came from ancient Greece. Most people in the western world know at least part of this story. It tells of an innocent virgin, Medusa, who was punished after her rape by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Athena gave her snakes instead of beautiful hair, scaly skin, and the power to turn men to stone at a glance. But does anyone know of the other story of Medusa, the goddess of the Amazons, the Snake Goddess of Minoan Crete and Libya, or even the original earth mother? This Medusa is much older then the Greek version.
In order to find this myth we have to go back much further then the Greeks, back to the Africans and specifically the Libyans. This was the first place we found the “snake goddess.” She was worshipped in the matriarchal society as:
Sovereign female wisdom. The female mysteries. All the forces of the primordial Great Goddess: The Cycles of Time as past, present and future. The Cycles of Nature as life, death and rebirth. She is universal Creativity and Destruction in eternal Transformation. She is the Guardian of the Thresholds and the Mediatrix between the Realms of heaven, earth and the underworld. She is Mistress of the Beasts. Latent and Active energy. Connection to the earth. The union of heaven and earth. She destroys in order to recreate balance. She purifies. She is the ultimate truth of reality, the wholeness beyond duality. She rips away our mortal illusions. Forbidden yet liberating wisdom. The untamable forces of nature. As a young and beautiful woman she is fertility and life. As crone she consumes by devouring all on the earth plane. Through death we must return to the source, the abyss of transformation, the timeless realm. We must yield to her and her terms of mortality. She reflects a culture in harmony with nature.(tufts)
What does this say about her place in the hierarchy of society? She was the goddess of “female wisdom.” Both men and women praised her for life and regeneration. They feared her because of her destructive powers. These destructive powers however were used to replenish the earth, not to decimate it. Through death came life and through life, death; this recycling was understood among these ancient people as a good thing.
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Her symbol, the snake, stood for “the cycles of life, death, and rebirth and the seasons. It is the connection to the fertile earth and to the underworld. It also symbolizes immortality as it was thought to shed its skin indefinitely”(tufts). Needless to say, the snake was not a symbol of evil.The snakes did not grow from her head, they were instead, “coiled around her arms, legs, or entwined in her hair…”(tufts) If you look at her origins in Africa, Medusa’s hair did not resemble snakes, but dreadlocks. Ancient Africans wore dreadlocks in order to save them from the tediousness of managing their hair. Although they may look “snake-ish,” they are actually hair entwined within hair in intricate knots. The snakes crawled all over the goddess but they did not grow from her.
Snakes, as symbols of immortality, linked Medusa with women’s menstruation. This is also shown in her link to the moon. Each month (or rebirth of the moon) women would bleed. “Back then, menstruating women were feared by men with holy dread as they inexplicably bled without wound or pain synchronized with the moon-tide cycles”(tufts). Medusa thus was linked to women through their bodies. She also provoked fear in men because of their ignorance to the female organism and their functions. Even then, the mention of female’s menstruation provoked fear. “Many ancient peoples believed that the look of a woman who was on her cycle could turn a man into stone” (poisentemple). This would further explain the male’s fear of not only of the goddess Medusa but also women in general.
The Great Triple Goddess was a powerful force in the Libyan Amazon’s lives. Medusa or Metis was the destroyer part. She “had a hidden, dangerous face. It was inscribed that no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse one's own death as she saw your future.” (tufts) It is interesting because the real name of the Great Triple Goddess was Neith, Anath, or (the Greek famed) Athene.
So, we see the origins of Medusa in Africa, more specifically in Libya. However, we, more often, know her from her origins in Greek my theology. The ties between this powerful African Medusa and the Greek’s evil Medusa are uncanny, yet you can see the imposed influence on her latter image. The African goddess was linked to immortality through snakes and menstruation, birth, and death through her place in the Triple Goddess and the future through her destructive gifts. Yet, it is still hazy how she lost all of these powers.
The famed Snake Goddess, originated at about 1600 BC in Minoan Crete, a highly agricultural area. She was reinvented or sent through a metamorphosis in Greece around the Bronze and Iron ages by their patriarchal society that conquered Crete and thus their dieties.
“In this mind, the world is no longer born of a sacred mother but from a supreme father. Earth and heaven are split eternally.”(tufts) The male dominated Greek society took the Medusa myth from its origins in Libya and skewed her tale from a Great Triple Goddess into that of the known Athena, Medusa, and Metis along the way.
I have two theories about how the Greeks changed the Medusa figure. The Libyans worshipped the Great Triple Goddess as the giver of life, so after capturing this nation the Greeks thought it was necessary to distinguish the three meshed Goddesses into three individual goddesses. Athena was given the part of wisdom and the preserver of the hero; Medusa stayed the destroyer of men; and Artemis became the goddess of the hunt, killing for substance, and renewal. Medusa, as the destroyer, thus had to be subdued in some way. She could not have been let loose upon the men of Greece. Instead, the hero Perseus had to be constructed in order to defeat the ancient goddess. By cutting off her head and using it as a weapon, Perseus symbolized a mortal man dominating over the most powerful female African goddess, Medusa. It also symbolizes the Greek’s domination over the whole “inferior” African race.
Yet, maybe Medusa did not have to wait to be oppressed by Perseus. Instead as I explain my second theory, the Greek’s powerful god of the sea, Poseidon, first subdued Medusa. The Great Triple Goddess Athene thus punished her one-third part, Medusa and took on the better attributes as the adopted goddess Athena. The Greeks might have adopted Athena as their helper to male heroes to contradict the destroyer Medusa.
So, why did the Greeks choose to raise the goddess Athena to the highest of ranks of the Olympian gods and goddesses, yet lower Medusa to the ranks of the evil and most dejected? Could it have been that the male society of the ancient Greeks were also scared of the power associated with Medusa and the power she evoked in their women? Medusa symbolized immortality, yet in the Greek culture she was the only one of the Gorgon sisters who was mortal. Did the men feel threatened by this dejected Medusa also? They must have because they had to send a warrior to kill her and subjugate her again.
Another image of this subjugation is shown in the myth of Apollo. “The god Apollo represents the rising patriarchy and the contemporary male interest” (tufts). The story: Apollo must master Euinaes, a form of the mother god that pre-dates the Olympian gods. She had to vacate Delphi, leaving it to be the location of Apollo’s shrine. “Through domination, the hero constantly conquers the cyclical pattern of nature and tries to make it linear. He tames the wild feminine forces and makes women conform to the male-servicing gender roles” (tufts). Medusa, as said earlier, represented this cyclical life, death, and rebirth. The taming of the circle meant the taming of the female and nature.
The pitting of Athena against Medusa in Greek myth has also sparked some controversy. Of course, this is assuming that men created Greek mythology. The twisting of Medusa, the goddess of menstruation and the one who “rips away our mortal illusions,” and dejecting her to evil, dejects all women to evil and impurity. Athena, using Perseus, supposedly purified the world of this evil or at least tamed it. “Men have committed the greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently, they have led them [women] to hate women and to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be executants of their virile needs. The have made for women antinarcissism!” (Cixous)
Essentially, in ancient Africa, Athene and Medusa co-existed peacefully. Medusa was a part of Athene, yet, when the Greeks took over the myth, they cursed Medusa because of her “natural” and “women-like” attributes. Athena thus became the goddess of men after her purification of the female Medusa. Medusa then became the temptress and destroyer of men. This is an egregious difference between Medusa’s origins and the Greek mythology. There must be something in the fact that the Libyan myth was in a matriarchal society and the Greek myth was in a patriarchal society.
If we go back to the Greek myth about the conception and birth of Athena, there is another parallel to the ancient Libyan myth. Zeus, the head of all the Olympian gods, consumed the nymph Metis (the other name for Medusa) and gave birth to Athena. She sprang from his head where she was cleansed of her mother or Medusa. “In the separation of Athena from Metis or Medusa, the two were over laid; Metis became her mother and Medusa her enemy” (tufts).
Her mother Metis the shape shifter was said to be the original mother as well as the wisest and greatest of all the gods. To Athenians, she was raped and swallowed by Zeus. Thus Zeus gained his power over the other gods by consuming her ancient lineage along with her immense wisdom. [He used her shape shifting ability primarily to seduce/rape females]. Metis's wisdom was so great that it impregnated Zeus's head and from it sprang the new Athena.
Betraying her ancient lineage, traitor Athena became the dutiful daughter who retained only her virginal, fertile aspect. She was the municipal goddess of Zeus's intelligence, in service of the male-solar ego, making men into heroes who dominate women and nature, and representing the patriarchal values, roles and ideals of Athens. She offers women a new blessed role; absent from the public sphere, and in the service of the male. Women are prescribed the role of virgin, wife and mother. As virgin, proof of his fatherhood is confirmed. As mother, she is the nurse of his children. And as wife she is in devoted service of her man. (tufts)Although, a very feminist view, the logic behind the explanation rings true. How else could the Greeks explain the emergence of a female goddess who had more wisdom than her male counterparts? Or how could the patriarchal society suppress its women and show them that their subjugation was better than the alternative? This brings up another very interesting question. What exactly was the matriarchal society like if men feared it with a passion?
Where did our Garden of Eden go? The shame of the nakedness of the human body did not exist when the ancient earth goddess existed. Menstruation invoked a sense of fear, yet a necessary fear. It showed the power of women. The people praised the body and exalted its abilities and magic. The female had the power of giving life and the power over her own body. She had the rights to her own fate as well as the men. Mother earth, in the female form was bounteous, round, and full. She gave freely in return for nothing but the dead bodies to rejuvenate the earth and make it productive. Was this the true Garden of Eden that the male God threw us out of?
There was a snake in that story too if I am not mistaken. The snake promised Eve knowledge, yet when she was given the knowledge she felt the shame of being naked. Was this the knowledge of her shortcomings and the shame of being female, the shame of not being as strong as her male counterpart? Why were they not given the knowledge to start off with?
So, how can we fix this problem? Should we all throw off our clothes and live in harmony with nature? I wish it were that easy. After three thousand years of male dominance, it will be very difficult to wean the human race off of violence and war. It seems to have a yearning for death and destruction that out forefathers and mothers feared. Children watch shows where violence is commonplace and accepted, but is this really what we want to teach? Or should we just accept what we were taught even though the fundamentals of out society were based on the hierarchy of men over women, parents over children, and mankind over nature (Nicholson).Medusa embodies the power of the female and her natural glory. She gives us the strength to carry children and care for them for the rest of our lives. As the destroyer she gives us an easy timely death that produces fertilizer in order for more food to be produced. So many years have gone by and her existence has faded into the background of our busy lives. We run around trying to please everyone except ourselves, denying the freedom, which we should have inherited. Should we punish our oppressors, the men that we have sworn to love? Or are they victims of time and the same mis-education?
We must get our lives back and reclaim our Eden in spite of this angry God. Through progress we have created the artificial, the unnatural, the destructive. And all this we attribute to religion and to a God. Yet, the machinery has enslaved us as we enslaved nature. Is the wheel too great and too fast to ever turn around? Can we ever break free from humility and piety, which keep us bound to the restrictions of society and the norms of the established matriarchy? Will our daughters live in a world free from the fear of rape as once the earth lived free from the rape of mankind?
Bibliography
Gadon, Elinor W., The Once & Future Goddess: A Symbol of Our Time. Harper San Francisco: New York, 1989.
Nicholson, Shirley, The Goddess Re-Awakening: The Feminine Principle Today. The Theosophical Publishing House: Wheaton, IL, 1989.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/classes/finALp.html
Le Van, Alicia. 07MAY96http://www.poisontemple.com/medusa.htm
Cassandra. 21JUN02http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/wlgr/wlgr-privatelife233.html
Leftkowitz, Mary R. and Maureen B. Fant. 24OCT02
Pictures
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~tjmoore/mythslides2/22athenaaegis.jpg
Athena’s AEGIShttp://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegoddess/
Minoan Snake Goddesshttp://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfgoddess.html
The Earth Mother of Willendorfhttp://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/poussin/sabine.jpg.html
Rape of the Sabine Womenhttp://www.edgarlowen.com/b5028.jpg
Black Medusahttp://www.indiana.edu/~myth98/medusa2.jpg
Perseus with Medusa’s headhttp://www.introspecinc.com/warehouse/rpg0142.htm
Medusa head (red)
Although the classic love story of a hero rescuing a “damsel in distress” creates a beautiful and harmonious story, there is more to the ultimate attraction between Andromeda and Perseus. Burne-Jones clearly illustrates, in both A Baleful Head and Rock of Doom, the head of Medusa as the link connecting the young couple. The Gorgon head seems to be a prominent figure in their relationship, and without this head, their love would fail. Thus, the question arises for every heterosexual relationship if there is an outside object or fantasy that binds their attraction and not just the romantic emotions associated with love.
Perhaps loving an object could be easier than loving the actual person. Especially if you fear the loss of lust, and you realize that you just love an idea you have formed about another person. However, when the idea that you have of that person and the idea that they have of themselves are exactly the same, you truly find love. This process takes time and effort, which is much more than the simple attraction to an object. The use of objectification in order to love makes your emotions simpler and easier to understand. Plus, you now have a hold of something concrete, unlike the ever changing and dynamic human.
The object, or should I say glue, that keeps Andromeda and Perseus together is the Gorgon head. In Rock of Doom, Andromeda peeks at the bag holding the Gorgon head that Perseus carries. The bag tempts her to look at it. While chained to the rock, she stares at the bag her rescuer carries instead of at the rescuer himself. Andromeda cannot help but look at the bag.
Objects often tempt us because they represent something different than ourselves. The verb to tempt comes from the Latin word temptare, which means to handle, touch, feel, try the strength of, put to try or to attempt. Temptation is most commonly known as the emotion of wanting to put something through trial and discovering its worth, truth or quality. This provides proof that we would want to try something out if it is different or odd to us and that is why it tempts us so much. The figure of Medusa and temptation can be looked at as either the temptation that one has to look at her or the temptation that one has to look at her in order to fully see themselves. To fully see yourself is to see what you are missing. Medusa represents what one is missing in life, and in return, represents the entirety of that person because whatever they see, it is their subconscious that sees it.
If a man who does not keep in touch with his “feminine side” takes a look at the Gorgon Head, then he will see the female in it’s entirety. I think Freud’s essay, Medusa’s Head, is true, but I don’t agree that every man will see the same thing. He claims that the man will see a big hairy, motherly vagina when he looks at the Gorgon Head and will become petrified (have an erection) in order to reassure himself of his manhood. Since Medusa represents what someone is missing in life, then a man may see a vagina. However, the scarier the female genitalia appears to a man, the more that man needs to discover femininity. In order to put Freud’s theory at work, a man should be castrated if the female genitals scare him because this shows what he is missing in life. If he is not close with females and not using his weapon of manhood then what is the point of having a penis and being a man. If a confidant man takes a peak at Medusa’s head then he will not see a vagina. He would see everything else he could be missing in his life. The Gorgon Head does not represent a clash between the sexes, and it does not indicate what a particular sex may see.
Helene Cixous obviously knows who and what she represents as a female. When she describes her Medusa, she says, “you only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing.” Cixous does not see evil or ugliness when she looks at her Medusa; instead she sees a vibrant female. In this case, Cixous sees a happy female because Cixous is not a happy female herself. She sees what her life misses in seeing Medusa—a female not suppressed. Cixous’ happiness or self-satisfaction will come when she feels men no longer suppress her; therefore the figure of Medusa will remain what her essay Utopias describes.
The only choice when faced with the Gorgon Head, the symbol of your perceived emptiness, is to be scared of what you see or to embrace and learn. Freud runs away from the female genitals and doesn’t really provide any resolution, whereas Cixous understands her loss and at least tries to start a revelation. This explains the difference between the words temptation and desire. Both words mean to want something; but "temptation" connotes a negative wanting, while desire carries the more positive emotion.
In Genesis, the root of the word temptation stems from Eve. When Eve ate the evil apple and gave into temptation, God gave her the pains of childbirth. Since the story of Genesis can be viewed as the sole of human existence than temptation has been viewed as something evil since the beginning of mankind. The book of Exodus states in the Tenth Commandment that “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Temptation again signifies something evil and bad to the human spirit. Arguably, if someone can obey this commandment then they would not have problems obeying the Sixth through Ninth Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”. For example, if one does not tempt or covert another man’s wife or personal possessions, than he would not have reason to commit adultery, steal, or murder. Therefore temptation often in today’s context only covers the negative aspect of wanting something.4 The female genitals scare Freud and some other men because the thought of giving into a woman’s temptations could have some serious repercussions on a male ego.
In the movie, Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas saw something in his initial attraction to Alex that he felt had had been missing in his own life. Maybe the simple fantasy of having sex with a blonde in a bathtub, he had always wished to live out. Before he married his wife this fantasy played as just a bachelor’s desire, but now, agreed to matrimony, this desire turns into a temptation—something he must resist.
Medusa clearly demonstrates the emotion of temptation since her whole existence rests upon the notion. Poseidon could not resist himself to her temptations so he raped her. Athena thought that Medusa could have controlled the power she had with her temptations or her hair. Therefore, Athena punished Medusa for being a temptress. I think Athena wished that she could tempt men the way that Medusa did. Athena was jealous. Of course when you realize you don’t have something and someone, especially a mortal in this case, has it, than you are going to try to put an end to it or become it. In the poem Medusa, by Patricia Smith, she invokes the idea that Poseidon did not rape Medusa out of temptation, but that the act conceived a mutual desire. “We defiled that temple the way it should be defiled, screaming and bucking our way from corner to corner. That bitch goddess probably got a real kick out of that.”5 What Athena saw in Medusa represented all of Athena’s resisted temptations, and I think it angered Athena to know that not everyone else resisted the same temptations as she had. Athena saw something she missed in life when Poseidon and Medusa committed their act of sex in her temple.
Since Medusa represents something that someone wants, either a temptation or desire, Medusa provides an insight into the subconscious. Aside from the most common story of Medusa’s rape in Athena’s temple, Mallarme in Les Dieux antiques provides a more personal rivalry and better explanation of Athena’s punishment. Camille Dumuolie stated that since Medusa boasted that she was more beautiful than Athena, the goddess found it
Necessary to set herself apart from her negative double in order to assert her own identity. For example, snakes are the attribute of Athena, as illustrated by the famous statue of Phidias and indicated by certain Orphic poems, which refer to her as ‘la Serpentine’. Moreover, the hypnotic stare is one of the features of the goddess ‘with blue-green eyes’, whose bird is the owl, depicted with an unblinking gaze. Finally, since she has affixed Medusa’s head to her shield, in battle or in anger she assumes the terrifying appearance of the monster. Thus, in the Aeneid (11,171), she expresses her wrath by making flames shoot forth from her eyes. These observations are intended to show that Athena and Medusa are the two indissociable aspects of the same sacred power.
Since Athena saw a part of herself in Medusa, she cursed Medusa into being her evil half. Dumuolie implies that Athena saw a part of herself in the Medusa that she created, but did not want to be tempted by it. She, instead, put the figure of Medusa on her shield so she could control her perception of her evil side.
Perseus also sees himself in the figure of Medusa. Cellini’s Perseus illustrates this concept best when he carves Perseus’ and Medusa’s face the same way. Perseus holds up the Gorgon head as an Olympic swimmer would hold up his hand if he had just won his race. He could have held the head by his side or behind his back away from view. When Perseus saw the reflection of Medusa before he decapitated her, he saw something within himself.
Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when the truth resembles a reflection. Of course, the first reaction to seeing the Gorgon head would be petrification because you are realizing something you have withheld in your subconscious. Petrification, in this context, means astonishment. Therefore, your perception of Medusa is actually always inside of you. From birth, a person only knows what is right by what is wrong. A mother will scold a baby for every wrong attempt he or she makes. For instance, if I said a bad word when I was younger and my mother corrected me than I would know that it is wrong; however, if I said a word and she didn’t say anything about it, I would assume that word was okay to say again. Also, a person only knows what he or she does not have by what other people do have. I never wanted a CD burner until I saw my friends installing them into their computers. I think of the saying, “You can never know the sweet until you know the sour.” A person will never accomplish complete “nirvana” until their perception of nirvana is fulfilled.
In Baleful Head when Andromeda is finally Perseus’ possession, Andromeda remains intrigued by the Gorgon Head. This time her temptation has turned into fascination since now she possesses the head. No one can blame Andromeda for her fascination with the Gorgon head that subconsciously induces the love with the hero, Perseus. Medusa becomes the necessary link between Perseus and Andromeda, the western heroic male and the rescued woman. Not only is Medusa a temptress, but she also represents many characteristics including dominance, control, petrification and evil to Andromeda. These traits signify the opposite of the female figure in Andromeda, which is why Andromeda is so drawn to her. People are fascinated by something that’s different than themselves and their own lives. The Gorgon head empowers Andromeda, gives her the motivation to be a stronger woman, and gives her a rush to feel actually feel life and what hers misses.
Medusa’s head connected them and gave their love a chance. It’s interesting how Andromeda and Perseus only really see themselves in the reflection of the fountain with Medusa a mere shadow in the background. As they look in the fountain together, they see what their love is missing. Medusa stands as a reminder of self- growth. Even though Perseus saves Andromeda from the evil sea monster, she is not obliged to marry him. However, she stays with him since she initially falls in love with the image of the powerful Perseus--the image of the man carrying the Gorgon head. And if she marries him, she knows that the Gorgon head will be hers too. Thus the Gorgon head becomes an object of fascination for Andromeda, which implies that her attraction to Perseus is not purely to the man himself. The Gorgon head acts as a good substitute for what their relationship misses—until Andromeda’s perception of the heroic Perseus fits his own idea of himself.
If these two perceptions finally do go hand in hand, one will realize that love is narcissistic. If you fall in love with an idea because it resembles your own idea than you love yourself. Will someone ever look at the Medusa figure and not see anything? I don’t think so because no one is perfect, but then again, perfection is just someone’s interpretation of it. The Medusa figure does not exist without human insecurities, and humans do not exist without their perceptions. The figure of the Gorgon head remains timeless.
Works Cited
1. The Oxford English Dictionary: Second Edition. Ed.
Burchfield, R. W. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989.
2. Freud, Sigmund. Sexuality and the Psychology of Love:
Medusa’s Head. 1922 <http:/www.cc.utah.edu/
~sgs0889/ laugh3.html>.
3. Cixous, Helen. Utopias. Ed. Marks, Elaine. New York:
Schoken Books, 1998.
4. Women’s Devotional Bible, New International Version.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Corporation, 1990.
5. Smith, Patricia. "Medusa." <http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1901>
6.Dumoulie, Camille. Medusa in Myth and Literary History. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bogan/medusamyth.htm.
Let Me be Your Hero Dave Panton
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
- Bonnie Tyler
“Holding out for a Hero”After the terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, the people of America poured an inspiring amount of thanks upon the heroes of the day, the firefighters and police officers of America who volunteered and gave their lives in rescuing the victims of the attacks. It became instantly “cool” to identify oneself as a fireman or a police officer, not necessarily even one from New York City. Rock stars gathered in New York for free concerts, honoring our “heroes.” Soon not just the volunteers of NYC earned the title of “hero,” but volunteers of all types-- teachers, mayors, servicemen and women--enjoyed the adulation of a thankful America. During this time I cemented my desire to become a Navy SEAL and to do my part in helping in the war against terrorism and whatever future entities that threatened my country’s way of life. Believing this the best way for me to reach self-fulfillment, I felt confident in my choice to support the profession of arms. I chose, and still choose, to be a hero.
Why do I want to be a hero? Is it for the love of a woman? The most easily identifiable heroes always seem to get the girl in the end. Tom Cruise gets Kelly McGillis in Top Gun, Popeye gets Olive Oyl, Superman gets Lois Lane, and Super Mario gets Princess Toadstool. Most of my colleagues will admit in the dim light of a bar that they joined the military to wear a sharp uniform that attracted women. I admit it too. I hope that deep within my heart, I have not been acting selfishly for the past three and a half years and that I carry a deeper goal within me. I hope that I want to be “bigger than myself.”
In the novel A Sense of Honor by James Webb, first classman at the Naval Academy Bill Fogarty urges a timid plebe to “be something bigger than himself” and to donate blood at the next blood drive. At the time of the Vietnam War, midshipmen felt an intrinsic desire to supply the Red Cross with enough blood for U.S. soldiers overseas. Fogarty demonstrates heroic qualities as a brigade boxer and striper. He deeply cares about his friends in the war and hopes to serve his country well. He tries to impart his own morals upon his plebe by compelling him to give blood. I applaud Fogarty’s actions. Surprisingly, I have never given blood during my time at the academy except for a medical checkup. After reading A Sense of Honor, I realize I should give blood soon, especially if I want to call myself a hero.
Being a hero does not mean swinging in tights and kissing pretty girls. “Adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves not these things,” instructs Jedi master Yoda to young Luke Skywalker in George Lucas’ The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda means that the Jedi, an almost perfect example of a hero for my time, seeks not the tangible, sensual rewards of conquest, but the ethereal, indistinct benefits of doing good. Patient and gentle, he represents all that we teach to our children in kindergarten. The person who seeks immediate rewards ends up on the dark side of the good versus evil spectrum. My high school friends and I often talked about how cool it would be to become a Jedi warrior. I remember seeing myself as a young Jedi-in-training during plebe summer while running with the rest of the plebes for a conditioning run around Farragut field. I knew that all of the academy training would eventually lead to a greater good somewhere in the universe. Perhaps that memory proves that I was not in it for myself. Then again, I really wanted to be a Jedi because it was “cool.” I had both selfish and unselfish reasons at the time.
I want to be a hero because I think I would hate myself if I were not one. Afraid of what my sons and father would think of me if I took a job somewhere in the civilian sector, making money for myself and simply consuming, I hope to validate myself in their eyes. George C. Scott’s speech in Patton says it well: Patton reminds his soldiers that “Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, What did you do in the great World War Two? You won't have to say, Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana.” He motivates his men not to be like the “normal” people back home who take ignominious jobs. In light of 9/11, however, hard-working men and women in America received praise for taking such jobs as garbagemen and janitors because of their unassuming support of the country. In the middle of “The Grinder,” the cement area reserved for intense physical training at Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL school, a simple plaque hangs over the podium where the instructor leads the exercises. The plaque reads, “Be Someone Special.” I am sure this plaque has reminded many aspiring SEALs of their original motivations for coming to BUD/S and kept them working for one more day, long enough to bring them to graduation. The idea implies that those who do not become SEALs are not special people. Mothers tell their children they are “special” long before any of them can become Navy SEALs, but I understand the idea of the plaque. It reminds men that what they are doing helps people in a very unique way.
The desire to be a hero is sometimes a dangerous compulsion. Men and women can be heroes just by being themselves. No one needs to “be someone special” in order to make a difference. All humans are special. Forrest Gump never wanted to be a hero and he inspired millions of people just by being himself. Many Medal of Honor winners state that they never wanted to earn the Medal; they just found themselves in the right place at the right time.
Even if a man or woman cannot outright choose to become a hero, why would they want to? These are some of the ideas that have solidified in my brain over the last four years: A man enjoys the hunt, to feel blood running in his veins. He feels better when he has been working hard to reach his goal. Few goals do not eventually lead to his ultimate pursuit of a woman (or a partner). The other goals concentrate on survival. He wants to have a family and to provide for them. A woman wants to be desired. She values the parts of herself that are beautiful and make her a desirable woman. She wants to be pursued. She wants to feel that she is worthy of a worthy man’s pursuit. Her family is important to her. Each person wants to feel good about his or herself.
An important theme in the hero’s story is the figure of Medusa. The idea of the Medusa often presents itself in the interaction between a man and a woman. She embodies the attraction that a woman possesses and the deadliness of a man. She personifies a woman scorned, a victim, a desire, a fear and an unknown. She presents an obstacle for the hero, whether the hero is male or female. As Perseus has to slay the Gorgon in order to rescue his lady Andromeda, men and women often have to overcome obstacles in order to find each other. The idea of the Medusa in a relationship has inspired me to look further into the traditional ideas of the hero and the heroine, who saves whom and if the hero must really exist. This paper says nothing about men and women who choose to live single or with multiple partners. I have not yet even begun to think about how to deal with the hero and Medusa in those issues.
A man often needs more than physical desire as a reason to pursue a woman. Men who are able to curb their bodily passions in wait for a more cerebral meeting with a woman face the challenge of knowing when to pursue her. This brings in the complicated situation of knowing what organ is in control: the penis or the brain? Logically, the brain is always in control because it sends the hormones and impulses down to the penis, but confusion still abounds between the two.
I illustrate the situation with the example of Archie Andrews of Riverdale High School, man-boy stuck between a rock and a hard place. His dilemma: to go on a date with Veronica or stay home and study with Betty. Archie cannot choose easily between the two. Betty, a sweet blonde, bakes Archie cookies and helps him with his homework. Rich brunette Veronica sports designer fashions and the newest cars along with a vicious personality and demanding father. Even when our bachelor adds up all the pluses and minuses of each girl to discover that Betty deserves his love, Archie falls for Veronica’s feminine wiles, time and time again. What affliction does Archie suffer? He has looked at Veronica’s image (the Medusa) and allowed himself to become Veronica’s boy toy, a frozen, inanimate object.
The Archie story needs a Veronica just as the story of the hero requires a Medusa. I predict that one day when Archie has finally learned to see past Veronica’s freezing gaze and to view her as the monster she indeed resembles, he will choose Betty. She represents a way to fulfillment (Betty, Andromeda) and a chance to give heroism a rest. Perhaps that is the reason Archie continually switches off between the two women. Veronica gives him a chance to feel like a hero by winning a beautiful, demanding girlfriend. He tires of suffering under Veronica’s abuse and moves to gentle Betty. After he grows bored with sweet Betty’s monotony, he yearns for the danger of Veronica. At the moment I see no solution out of this vicious cycle of heroism and repose except for settling for boredom. The complexity of this comic book may seem surprising, but I have dealt with this problem for years.
Ten years old, I laid roughly twenty comics on the floor in my father’s apartment in Arlington, Texas. My mother bought them for me so I would not get bored during the summer. They made an attractive matrix of covers. Each one was an issue of a different title, all Marvel comics. Some I liked better than others; I remember an “Uncanny X-men” that I could not fully understand because I had not read the previous ten issues. Some were hilarious like the “Groo” by Sergio Aragones that made fun of wandering adventurers like Conan and had silly illustrations. I am not sure why I enjoyed these comics so much, perhaps because I was so bored, a captive in an unfamiliar Texas summer environment. My mother had made a living through her art. I always wanted to be as good an artist as she and I thought that drawing the fun pictures inside comics would help. The issues in my hand felt as if they were priceless. The weight of the comic book, the shiny covers and the colors on the pages did not seem like they could come out of an ordinary printing press. These books must have come out of an African diamond mine.
From ten years old and on, I’ve read comics and shared them with my brothers and friends. I’ve learned from them and felt the same way I thought that some of the characters inside could have felt. I loved that the characters in comics were so easily identifiable. The hero in the bright tights represented good and the dark man or woman with the V-shaped eyebrows represented evil. In a world where I could not always tell who wanted to help me or hurt me, these stories made me feel a little safer and surer of the world. I still read comics today, especially the older ones that remind me of the times my brothers and I spent learning about the heroes, searching for that one hard to find issue. Now I refer to them when I think about a certain problem in my life or in the world. I see comics as a tool to help view a complex problem in a simpler way. Much like the movies that make good summer blockbusters, the comics I like contain a hero, a beautiful woman and a villain in between them.
The hero is an integral part of Western society. Songs praise him, paintings depict him, and children want to be him. I hope to discover why the hero exists and define him. Many ideas concerning heroes apply to the traditional Western civilization version of the man and the woman. They have faced resistance ever since a man or woman spoke them or wrote them down, but they prevail as dominant ideas in our society today. Because I grew up in a society that teaches these ideas, source of the books and stories and songs and movies I watch, listen to and read, I probably think in the same way that men for thousands of years have thought. I pray that whichever muse who guides me in fair and analytical thinking will protect me from unoriginal thought and callous generalizations in this endeavor.
I start by defining a hero as a man or woman who helps others. I know that a hero can be either a woman or a man. Years of living in an equal opportunity society have taught me that. What must a hero do? Does he or she necessarily have to succeed in helping others? Or can he or she only hope to help and still be a hero in his or her failures? I say yes. Wordplay Columns describes how a hero can fail and still be a hero: “Indiana Jones is perhaps the greatest action hero in the history of the movies. And in his debut film, he flat-out fails from beginning to end.” In order for the hero to earn the sympathy of the audience, Indiana Jones must hold their belief. Failing makes a hero more human and more believable. Stan Lee, innovative creator of many Marvel Comics characters from the sixties, says, “It's totally necessary and imperative for a hero to be vulnerable. If they don't have an Achilles' heel, they're not fun to read. You don't worry about them.” Lee’s Spider-man instantly earned my respect when I was young because he suffered the same pains and dings that a normal teenager would and still came out on top at the end of most issues.
Some men naturally want to be a hero. Why do not all men want to be heroes? Some women are heroes. Do heroes themselves want to be heroes? Vince Lombardi said, “Leaders are made, not born.” The men and women in comics that seek out to become heroes often end up becoming villains. Men and women who do not expect to receive any super power and in turn deal with them through surprise and effort end up becoming the greatest heroes. Superman never asks to land on Earth after his planet explodes. Batman does not want a mugger to murder his parents in front of him, making him hate all criminals. Spider-man does not expect to feel the bite of a radioactive spider at a science exhibit. Dr. Doom, however, just like Faust, seeks magical power and therefore scars his face and psyche, turning him into a super villain. Just because a hero wants to be a hero does not ensure he will accomplish good.
No one can be a hero all the time, just as no man can be all things to all people. In the Spider-man movie, actress Rosemary Harris playing Peter Parker’s aunt May says to the exhausted young superhero, “You’re not Superman, you know.” People often told me that when I was in high school, a young man trying to accomplish as many things as I could in order to become the most glorious graduate ever from Arlington High. Back then my motives sprang from a desire for glory. Maybe they were for a fear of not leaving a legacy and living the rest of my life as an afterthought. Right now I can see them as selfish. But were they really? I remember talking to people about helping others in need. I remember getting on their cases for not caring about people who needed what others had. A lot of what I did came from fear of becoming one of the people I chastised for not caring. I wanted the glory of not being selfish. I still feel guilty for seeking that glory. I think that is only fair.
With great power comes great responsibility. A hero often feels guilt for not exercising his power or for using it in the wrong way. He feels guilty for possessing a power and not using it for good, thus motivating himself to become the altruistic superhero. Then again, he feels guilty for not being worthy of accruing too much glory and stops being a hero. This happens to many celebrities who feel that the same fans who have brought them fame have betrayed them by only wanting more. Why can’t the hero just live with his guilt and his power and not destroy himself from within by doubt?
Often as a young man I have tried to prove to myself that I can survive life as a hero. For all the reasons listed above, I am sure that I want to choose “hero” as a life profession. Many times, I have thought to myself that I do not have what it takes to be a hero all of the time. No man or woman can be a hero at all times, I tell myself. However, when I have had a worthy quest, I have felt content in that situation. I knew what I wanted and I was using my powers to get it. I felt no ambiguity and when I completed the quest everything in my life would make sense. Like Don Quixote I have chased windmills and searched for Dulcineas to champion. I have followed this cycle more or less for the greater part of my life and I can tell you that it is a vicious one. If a man can spend some of his time using all of his powers to accomplish good and he cannot be a hero all of the time, then he must spend other times using none of his powers, while accomplishing evil. Basically, I get tired of losing and I give up. During these ‘evil’ periods when all of my powers for good have vanished, I feel depressed and hate myself. How can I be a hero when I can accomplish no good?
When I first started thinking about this, I learned about the manic depressive. Also known as a person with the bipolar disorder, the manic (happy) depressive (sad) person feels great one day and miserable the next. Was I a carrier of this disease? I hope not, but it helps me to tell myself that a person can not be a hero all of the time. My horoscope tells me I need to find emotional equilibrium. I guess I could easily find it by never leaving my room and never facing defeat. Tina Turner, at the beginning of her song “Proud Mary”, says that she “never (does) nothing nice and easy; I like it nice and rough!” That’s the way I choose to live my life. If I took everything nice and easy, I would never become someone special. Instead I choose to do good where I can and pick my battles wisely. No one can be all things to all people.
A hero may or may not know that he or she is indeed a hero. Few firefighters and policemen call themselves heroes. A man may desire to be a hero and accomplish just that. Still, a hero can inadvertently save a person’s life and not know it. Does that break from the definition of a hero who “seeks to help?” Maybe I should revise my definition a little further. An important aspect of the hero is the idea of ambition. How big of a hero does this particular one want to be? Does he or she want only to help the people in his or her town? What about the county, the state, the world? As you can see, ambition brings a lot of danger to our hero’s situation. I refer to the examples of Julius Caesar, especially from the Shakespeare play, and the character Kane in the movie Citizen Kane.
In the play, characters Brutus and Cassius charge Caesar with ambition, much like Americans charging Hitler with plans for world domination. Whether or not Caesar plans to rule as a benevolent ruler or not does not matter. The idea of an all-powerful human sickens those who would serve under Caesar. So they kill him. Caesar’s great plans for the Roman Empire die with him, or at least shuffle to the next emperor. In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane builds an empire upon a successful newspaper and ensconces himself within his wealthy estate Xanadu, away from the attention of all the people who helped him build his fame. Kane dies alone and depressed, lamenting the loss of his early childhood toy, a sled named Rosebud. Kane starts out with the ideals of truth and helping the people through his newspaper but ends with feelings of isolation and loss. Even with so much ambition and success, Kane finishes with nothing. To many he is a hero, an example of a man who could raise himself from triviality to importance. He does not feel like a hero when he dies alone. These two examples beg many questions about the motivations of a hero.
Does ambition make a hero? Both Caesar and Kane want power. Even though their intentions are good, they still end with little and fail to use their powers heroically. Are they still heroes? I assert that they are not heroes because they fail in ultimately accomplishing anything more than negligible good. The adage “close, but no cigar” applies to these two men. Sure, Julius Caesar rules over one of the largest empires in history and Kane amasses a fortune, but I doubt they are satisfied with that. To me, a hero does what he can with what he has and takes advantage of the situations to accomplish his goal, helping others. If the hero fails in helping others and loses sight of his goal, he ceases to be a hero. But does he really? I take it back. It seems to me too judgmental to tell a hero that he “ceases to be himself” when he fails. As mentioned before, a hero must fail in order to earn the sympathy of others and no hero can be a hero all of the time. Yes, the magic in the power of the hero is the “try.” Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech addresses heroes who fail. Roosevelt gives credit to the one “who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again… who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” As long as a man or woman tries to help others, he or she can wear the title of “hero.” So, for my definition a hero need only seek to help others to be a hero.
To answer another question, does a hero have to help others to be a hero? The media often calls professional athletes heroes. They perform superhuman deeds and try very hard at their jobs while earning money, but do they help anyone? On the other hand, amateur athletes perform amazing deeds for little money and limited glory. Many people consider cyclist Lance Armstrong a hero because he inspires sufferers of cancer to fight to live. In that way he helps make others’ lives better. I do not see professional actors such as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt as heroes on the merit of their wealth and fame alone. They may, however, donate much of their wealth to the benefit of starving artists and in turn help the lives of artists and art lovers, then becoming heroes. So I say, yes, a man or woman must at least seek to help others in order to become a hero.
Is a hero guaranteed to have love? As we have seen through the examples of Frodo the hobbit, Batman and King Arthur, the hero does not necessarily end up with the beautiful girl. Frodo finishes his quest in The Lord of the Rings without a finger, unhappy and alone, Batman’s only love interest, Catwoman, keeps him busy putting her in jail and King Arthur loses Gwenevere to Lancelot. Charles Foster Kane only remembers the love he shared with his sled Rosebud. Spider-man walks away from Mary Jane at the end of the movie. No, the hero does not get the girl just by being a hero. In the same way the hero does not get a guarantee of the happy ending. Just think about Beowulf. The ultimate hero’s story ends with him inside the belly of a dragon.
I want to be a hero, regardless of the not so happy ending ahead. That is a major reason in my choosing the military as a profession. I want to be able to live my hero years in the military. I do not think that by the end of five years in the active duty Navy I will be able to call myself a hero. I realize this is flawed logic because I know I do not need to be in the Navy to be a hero and a lot can happen in five years as well. I could lose a leg or two and end up as the poster child for a media blitz against the war. Would I then be a traitor to the American military or the savior of thousands of lives because I helped to end a war? People would call me a hero if I survived six months in a Latvian prisoner-of-war camp but would then despise me if I broke down and divulged sensitive military secrets to my captors. Regardless of what will happen I plan to spend up to twenty years in the navy and find myself a wife who will support me in my career and help me reach the rank of captain or beyond. I like to call this woman “a navy wife.” The first time I told my sister about this plan, she said I was wrong and that I will have some trouble in finding a woman like that.
I see women like that all the time whenever I see military officers and their wives. I see the woman who stays at home to raise the kids and moves from station to station with her husband to keep the family together. When I read astronaut John Glenn’s autobiography, I instantly fell in love with his lifetime sweetheart Annie, a pretty girl who had trouble talking in public but stood by her husband in war, peace and space. I wanted to be like Glenn and I thought that having a wife like him would help. I still do. However, if I go around stating that I need a woman to stay home and raise the kids and not work on her own, I am sure to meet with immediate opposition, especially from women in the military. These heroic women for the most part want to prove themselves as heroes and not as the ones supporting the heroes. They threaten me because I do not know how to deal with them while preserving my own heroic identity. They are my Medusa’s.
For centuries in western culture, women have supported the men who worked, fought and died for their families. Now, much of that has changed and many men stay home to support the woman who works. In a way, the men and women who stay home to nurture the families are heroes as well. I can hardly see myself as a stay-at-home dad and also understand the hypocrisy in asking a woman to do the same. Still, I like the challenge of facing a Medusa in order to claim my Andromeda. BUD/S has a saying, “It pays to be a winner.” The prospect of sitting out of an exercise for doing well motivates the trainees to work harder than the man next to them and raises the standard of excellence for the whole group. Without my reward in sight, I easily turn to leisure and lose my quest. Without my Andromeda, I do not know where to go.
Is being a hero about being a man or a woman? A man’s physical makeup encourages adrenaline-based activities and conflict. Americans teach their boys to be aggressive and assertive. Now, women in America want the same demanding positions that boys have. The “heroic man” paradigm is changing to become the “heroic person” paradigm. I am no longer assured a future with a supportive “Navy Wife.” Take a look at how the bible treats a woman in Proverbs 31. The passage talks about how much a man should value a virtuous woman. She cooks, she cleans, she clothes the family and speaks nothing but good of her husband. What an amazing idea! Not since the Brady Bunch has such a family prospered. Should I feel guilty for wanting this? Many women would say, “Yes,” and that I should crawl back into my corner and go back to feeling bad about myself. Perhaps that is the problem. I need to feel good about myself regardless of whether I am supporting a family or being supported or living on my own and barely making enough for myself. A good wife and husband will make each other feel like heroes. It does not matter who is in charge as long as the relationship works.
Through my analysis of a hero and with help of the examples of Perseus and Medusa, I have refined a definition of the hero: “A hero is a man or a woman who seeks to help others. A superhero is a man or a woman who seeks to help others through powers above those of normal men and women. A villain is a man or a woman who seeks to hurt others. A super villain is a man or woman who seeks to hurt others through powers above those of normal men and women.” I include the part about superheroes because I believe every man and woman has a personal trait that in some way surpasses that of every other person on the planet. By thinking this way, not only can we be heroes, but we can be superheroes! Yes, Superheroes do exist on Earth; just watch the movie Unbreakable. In it, a man named David saves unsuspecting people from those that would do them evil. That sounds good; I’ll have that.
Works Cited
“A Virtuous Woman.” Proverbs 31:10-31. Holy Bible: King James Version. <http://www.avirtuouswoman.org/proverbs31.html>
Pond, Steve. “Stan Lee’s Spidey Guide.” E! Online 10 Dec. 2001. <http://www.eonline.com/Features/Features/Spiderman/Guide/index3.html>
Rossio, Terry. “Impressive Failure.” Wordplay Columns. <http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp08.Impressive.Failure.html>
Webb, James. A Sense of Honor. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute. 1995
You Always Want What You Can’t Have Ali Sposato“Medusa! Your face looks so wonderful now that you’ve gotten some lotion to smooth out those scales! I can’t believe how great you look!” beams the valley girl voice across the radio waves.
Medusa in her scruffy voice responds, “Well, I’ve finally found a place that can accommodate such a demanding woman as myself.”
“I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this kind of treatment for so long!”
“Yes. And look at what they’ve managed to do with my hair. I finally found the right hair products to tame my unruly snakes.”
At this point, I am completely shocked to randomly hear a bit about Medusa in a pop culture environment. I then turn up the radio so I can hear where this advertisement could be leading, until the unmistakable voice of James Earl Jones entices the listeners:“Using Verizon Wireless® 411, you too can find the same miracle beauty salon with the quick press of a button on your cell phone.”
The bumbling valley girl comes back across to close out the ad by saying, “And you even got them to file your fangs down! I never knew you could look so good!” James Earl Jones finally resonates in the heads of the impressionable public “Remember, use Verizon Wireless® 411 for all of your phone directory needs.”
Medusa is still very much alive today in many respects. Not only do students enrich their learning by perusing her myth, but she also stars in advertisements in a society which is infinitely more technologically advanced than the society in which the Medusa myth first appeared centuries ago. She retains that magnetic appeal that has allowed her to remain a mystery to artists and writers and viewers and readers alike. What is her appeal?
Anyone who knows the Medusa myth should know that her beauty proved unsurpassable at one point during her life. Most of the drawings that portray this mysterious and ever-lasting creature, however, only bring to life the second side of Medusa—Athena’s punished Medusa. At a shallow glance, Medusa looks like a monster and acts just as violent and scary as a monster would. Many artists portray her as an extremely masculine character, yet there is something about her that draws people back for more. Could we be searching for that hint of beauty buried somewhere that we have always heard about but have never seen?
Many artists, or even writers, movie directors and poets shed light into what could possibly be her magnetic appeal—people want what they cannot have. Sometimes throughout this quest to attain one’s desires one creates an image of beauty in his or her mind to help make his or her chase worth the trouble. Carravagio’s shield shows us Medusa as horrifying and ugly, yet interesting. And then from Chimera, to “A Baleful Head” and Fatal Attraction, the mystery of her beauty and the desire to see it, and to have it, become clearer.
In John Barth’s Chimera, I took a first look at a different side of Medusa—his version of what could have been her actual persona. Barth presents his readers with a rare treat of discovering more of Medusa--before the gaping mouth and fiery eyes. One cannot understand Barth’s view of Medusa, however, until he or she understands the driving factor of beauty behind this personality he creates in his book.
Most people know that Medusa possessed great beauty. What exactly defines her beauty, though? - Her hair. Throughout every age, hair has always represented the stature of the beautiful, because many times its “powers [are] thought to be both magical and symbolic.” (Gitter 936) Medusa’s claims to fame are her “personal charms and beauty of her locks.” (Modern American Poetry Homepage) Her hair defines her as beautiful. Writers and scholars, though, do not delve much farther into the beginning of Medusa’s mortal life before her meeting with Poseidon.
Aristotle defines beauty: “order, symmetry, and the Definite” (Dubois 1219). Ruskin refers to beauty as “an ideal of form” (DuBois 1219). Although Ruskin disagrees with Aristotle on the definition of beauty, no doubt exists that Medusa falls under both categories. Almost all versions of the myth harmonize in their ideas of Medusa as an extremely beautiful woman before her rape. Not only was she definite and ordered as a mortal, but she was also an ideal form with her sweet face and gorgeous hair.
Beauty of this magnitude, however, is dangerous, and eventually causes trouble in the world. In the beginning of “Perseid” in Chimera, Perseus retells a meeting he had with Athena when she enlightened him to the history of Medusa. The problem with Medusa was not the effect her beautiful hair and her physical beauty had on the world, but how her beauty affected her internal character. Athena relates how Medusa, “catching sight of her reflection in the goddess’s shield, left off her obsequies for a moment to pin up her hair” (Barth 89). Before she knew it, Poseidon had started to rape her. Despite that, however, “her eyes were fastened on the shield’s reflection” (Barth 89). Medusa is very aware of her beauty and its effects on others. After he finished, “she redid through her tears her hair, to look more becomingly ravished” (Barth 89). Barth gives his reader’s a little more insight into what actually happened in the temple; and although Poseidon did in fact rape Medusa, it seems that she does not hold complete innocence because of the sin of pride. She loved her own image too much.
Medusa’s downfall happens very quickly. More than one writer has presented the “Medusa at fault” rendition, but John Barth presents his readers with a dilemma. Although he paints Medusa as possibly not the sweetest and most virtuous of girls, the reader still feels sorry for her. When Medusa finally meets Perseus, some of her naïveté comes through. Her childhood innocence still remains after many years of being banished to Gorgon-hood. Could we be drawn to her and perceive her innocence because we know of her original beauty and confidence?
In The Passion, Jeanette Winterson uses “Henri” to explain some of Napoleon’s mystery: “he was in love with himself and France joined in” (Belsey 688). Napoleon gained much of his power and respect from his great self-confidence. Medusa falls under the same idea according to Barth. She seems to have so much confidence when looking at herself in the mirror. She has even more strength from inside--although tainted by her excessive self-love--to keep herself together after being taken advantage of.
After reading that episode I felt a small pang of sympathy for her even though her conceited attitude controls the passage. There is something that is gripping about people with such self-confidence and self-love that calls one back. Their energy draws in others around them. They have a mystery about them that others want to soak up. People desire to learn what makes this ravishing person so confident. Yet despite anyone’s personal feelings about Medusa and what happens to her, she still has brought her fate upon herself. Maybe her beauty does not constitute the only attracting factor that surrounds her.
Medusa Rondanini
How could anyone be attracted to such a strange being? Although this creature does not classify as extremely ugly and scary, she still looks odd. Her face conforms to the natural human attraction preferences according to a study done by David M. Buss in The Evolution of Desire: “full lips, clear skin, smooth skin, lustrous hair, and an animated facial expression” (53). In another study done by Elaine Hatfield and Richard Rapson in Love and Sex: Cross Cultural Perspectives, this Medusa figure still falls under the category of a sexy woman: “big limpid eyes combined with full sexual lips and high cheekbones”(33). Her hair must be made of snakes, but one would not notice from looking at this version—her hair could just have body and be curly. Something does not look right though. Maybe the horns throw me off. Despite her strange twin appendages, she still looks mostly striking. She draws in the viewer easily. How? Is it because he or she knows that this sculpture represents “Medusa,” and that she once possessed even more beauty?
This sculpture presents a lot of mystery to its viewers. As humans, curiosity drives our lives. We always want to know more. And when something perplexes most of us, we want to find out why. Why does this Medusa figure look so different from anything we have ever seen before? Since we have never really seen a pictorial rendition of her before her rape and “punishment,” we want to know more. We want to know about the things that we cannot see. Maybe by staring at her current form long enough her original beautiful form will show itself?
Beauty does not have to be something that conforms to societal standards. Often, those objects that deviate from the norm grab our attention, rather than the typical average, symmetrical being. The thought of the unknown and just plain weird grabs one’s attention. I would most likely spend more time pondering an interesting, and maybe even ugly work of art, rather than the typical painting of a girl with a pretty face. Strange paintings or people allow the mind to open up and think more. They allow one’s imagination to run wild in trying to conquer something it has never seen before.
Medusa by Caravaggio
Where is the beauty in this fellow, or it is a lady? This face does not conform to the attractiveness ideals of “the average or symmetrical face” (Buss 45). The face holds nothing to be desired; the snakes are gross and blood streams down the bottom of the shield. Not to mention that Medusa normally has womanly characteristics; she should—she is a woman. Yet this being looks more like a man. The eyes look wretched and the open mouth most likely would not seem inviting to anyone. Why does one want to look at it then? He or she would not be deemed attractive by any cultural standards. One wants to look at this shield out of curiosity.
How does a person turn into such a creature? How could that creature have been the beautiful Medusa once with gorgeous hair and a pretty face? Medusa by Caravaggio’s standard looks like a man. Generally men do not fall under the “beauty” category. So why do people have an obsession with “her”? Her beauty stems not out of traditional terms in an adherence to society’s standards of beauty, but more out of a curiosity for the mysterious and unknown. One wants to look at this beautiful monster because he or she wants to make sense of Medusa’s life, and how she came into being into this hideous state.
“The Baleful Head” - Edward Burne-Jones
The mysterious Medusa draws in her “admirers” fairly easily, as seen in “The Baleful Head.” Edward Burne-Jones shows his readers Andromeda’s great curiosity—Medusa. Andromeda looks at Medusa very intently. Dante Gabriel Rossetti tells the viewer/reader, in “Aspecta Medusa”—his poem that corresponds to the painting--why Perseus holds up the head of the Gorgon: “Andromeda, by Perseus sav’d and wed, / Hanker’d each day to see the Gorgon’s head” (1-2). Something about Medusa calls to Andromeda. She feels compelled to look at the head of Medusa, even though she knows she should not. Certainly Andromeda most likely does not care about Medusa’s beauty. Her beauty specifically has no effect on Andromeda’s life personally. Her “beauty” does not pose a threat to Andromeda since she exists only as the ugly head of a Gorgon. Medusa, however, does have something that Andromeda wants all to herself—Andromeda’s husband. Her curiosity about what she cannot participate in plagues her mind. Andromeda can never have Perseus all to herself because his job calls for him to protect Medusa’s head at all times. Andromeda wants her husband’s undivided attention. A person who poses a mystery to Andromeda has claimed her husband’s time and attention; naturally she wants to get up close and personal—or at least as close to Medusa as one can get. She wants something that she cannot have. Andromeda’s fascination does not have to do so much with Medusa as it does with Perseus and her desire for him.
Rossetti sheds more light into Andromeda’s need to see the real Medusa: “Let not thine eyes know / Any forbidden thing itself.” (6-7) Andromeda wants to see the head because she knows the danger it possesses. She wants something she cannot have. Humans must be hardwired to only want the things they cannot have. Not very often does one see a person who seems completely content with his or her lot in life. The human mind will pursue its desire incessantly, even if that desire only consists in seeing the object.
Perseus bothers the reader again in Chimera. Eventually, Athena re-heads Medusa. She takes away her snakes and tells her to go have fun with her life. Athena, however, does put a few stipulations in place:
1) Medusa is not allowed to look at herself in the mirror
a) If she does, she will see a Gorgon-head
2) If she ever showed her face to anyone ever again, she would turn
back into a Gorgon
a) She could juvenate or depetrify one person of her choosing,
but she would still turn back to Gorgon
b) (Perseus does not know of the final stipulation until much later)Perseus finds Medusa, cloaked and hiding her face. He spends time with her and talks to her; he learns about her life, and begins to feel close to her for various reasons—guilt and genuine pity. All during this time his desire builds and builds. Perseus has no clue who this girl really is: “I [Perseus] was plagued by doubts about us both. ‘How could I be sure what was behind her veil?’. . . And wasn’t it likely my attraction was mainly relief after all my troubles, or mere vanity at being loved?’” (Barth 107). Perseus does not know what he wants. Yes, maybe he likes Medusa, but so many desires and issues bounce around inside Perseus; Medusa happens to be the closest outlet. What she represents for him is excitement, and he needs that.
Perseus cannot have Medusa and that drives him crazy. He cannot explain his frustration, though: “ Desire is what is not said, what cannot be said.” (Belsey 685) Perseus’ desire arises from the mystery and the unknown:
I declared I loved her and asked what Athena’s last condition was, for I wanted very much to see the face that spoke in such a gentle voice and topped such a pretty neck…if the man who uncowled her, and on whom she laid her one-shot grace, were her true lover, the two of them would turn ageless as the stars and be together forever. But since she hadn’t known herself a Gorgon before, and couldn’t view herself now, for all she or I could know she might be Gorgon still, and Athena’s restoration a nasty trick. In short, whoever unveiled and kissed her must do so open-eyed, prepared to risk petrification forever in a Gorgon’s hug. (Barth 107)
Perseus knows he does not love Medusa. He desires her because he thinks she could be beautiful, but he cannot be sure. Beauty does not play a role in his yearning to see Medusa. He loves what he does not know. He loves the beauty he thinks she has. In essence, he does not love her; he loves what he wants her to be. He loves what she is, which is covered up—unknown and mysterious. He knows he cannot have her; he would be mad to risk possible petrification for the girl. But for some reason he wants to rip her cloak off: “What is at stake is a loss: ‘We gamble with the hope of winning, but it’s the thought of what we might lose that excites us’.” (Belsey 688-9) Perseus hopes that Medusa has regained her beauty under her cover, but his desire stems from possible petrification. How exciting—flirting with death, the unknown, the forbidden. These are all the source of Medusa’s attraction. Perseus chickens out. The thought of pure beauty is not enough to compel him to face death.
Glenn Close…or Medusa?
In Fatal Attraction the director presents an attraction along the same lines as the previous, but he takes it to the extreme, hence the term “fatal.” At first the viewer sees a modern happy family: a successful father and husband (Dan Gallagher), a sweet mother and housewife (Beth Gallagher), and an adorable daughter (Ellen). They have what some would call a perfect life and family. . .until Dan and Beth attend a simple cocktail party. The temptation begins as Glenn Close has a coy conversation with Dan, almost trying to lure him back for more. She does not present herself in a traditional beautiful way, but instead in a mysterious, alluring manner. She finally gets her chance to seduce Dan when Beth and Ellen go out of town for a weekend. Dan does not need much seduction, however; his desire and interest already exists.
Alex Forrest is not the typical beautiful woman. Her eyes are squinty and her nose is a bit pointy. She does catch one’s eye, however, with her wild, blonde, Medusa-like hair and flashy clothes. Alex’s appeal does not form from the typical definition of “beauty,” but instead in her self-confidence and her mysterious persona. She gives Dan long lingering looks, and confusing smiles that make one wonder if she might be trying to entice him in for more, or if she just wants to observe him and take him in innocently. Whatever her motivation is, Dan seems intrigued.
Over a brief lunch, Alex blatantly asks him to have an affair, or at least a one-night stand. Dan Gallagher seems to have everything—why would he want to betray and jeopardize his family and his life? Alex’s beauty is not that powerful. He does not know her—that intrigues him. So many questions must run through his head during that lunch. He sits across from an alluring, sexy and self-confident woman who opens herself up to him. But he loves his wife. But this woman seems infinitely more exciting! Dan says, in fact, “I don’t know her. She seems wild and crazy. I just want to try it out and see. There’s a little itch in me that needs to know what this woman is about and why she makes me want her so badly.”
Catherine Belsey presents her readers with an interesting point: “Radically heterogeneous, even to itself, desires cannot be presented, made present” (685). Dan has no reason to pick Alex over any other “sexy” woman. Alex presents herself as available; Dan knows he should not engage in a relationship with her—this constitutes her appeal. Her “beauty” (as defined earlier) grabs his attention, but it is not strong enough to force him do something he knows he should never do. He engages in this adulterous relationship because the mystery attracts him. Alex does not interest him as much as the unknown interests him. He cannot “win” anything through his one-night stand, but the opportunity for “loss” pushes him over the edge to chase his desire. His desire to get what he cannot or should not have almost proves fatal in this case. Although he regrets it, he would have had more regret had he not explored the mystery and unknown in Alex.
Beauty, no matter how remarkable, can lure a man to commit adultery, and risk his family, the life he has created, and possibly even death in the case of Medusa. Why? Camille Dumoulié in her essay on a Modern American Poetry web page helps to define men’s insatiable desire for the unknown and forbidden: “The feminine continues to remain a source of fear for men, and the association of women with Medusa, evokes an aspect of the sex which is both fascinating and dangerous.” The fact that a person should not engage in a certain activity provides the fuel of desire one needs to surely take part. Women are beautiful. They pose a threat to men because they hold a strange and compelling power of mystery over them. Men want to flirt with it because of their inner confidence. They think, “I am the man, she is the woman, she cannot have this power over me.” So he gets closer and closer to her, trying to prove to himself that he is strong. His time runs out, however, before he realizes, she is stronger.
Many times this strange “beauty” brings others down with it also because the innate curiosity proves too strong of a force to ignore. Most people do not want ugly possessions in life, whether it be a car, a dog, or a wife/husband. We, as a society, feel the need to chase after everything that we think holds beauty. If something does not meet our standards we must make it beautiful or chase after it to find its appeal.
Although Alex does not have common beauty, she exists as a mystery. Perseus, in Chimera, had no way of knowing if Medusa still had the Gorgon head, or if she had become beautiful. He clung to the mystery of her. Medusa existed as such a mystery to Andromeda, that she lived to see the force that stole her husband away. The shield of Caravaggio most definitely does not fall into the beauty category. It looks like a man, mysteriously, but we know that it should be a woman. None of these people or objects exists as very beautiful. They manage, though, to draw their subjects in with substantial force. The myth of Medusa proves that beauty is not the only controlling factor in attraction.
Most people might think that the idea of the American Dream only exists in America. According to the Medusa myth, however, it cannot. The American Dream must have begun ages ago when the myth of Medusa came about. The idea of striving to gain objects that one does not have, and to chase after the unknown defines the Medusa myth. People want what others have. As long as others possess something, it remains a mystery to those who do not possess it. In this way, it builds and builds as a force of desire that no one can explain.
Many times we use the term “beauty” too strictly. Asserting the fact that humans only like the beautiful objects according to popular criticism, not many objects in the world would be desirable. Somehow more objects in our world have to be beautiful. People like objects that just are not beautiful by definition. They must be beautiful because we desire them. We may desire some objects because they are beautiful to us; yet some objects may become beautiful to us because we desire them for various reasons.
People want what they can’t have—plain and simple. Beauty may attract someone, desire for status may compel someone to pursue a path or a person, but most yearning comes back to a longing for the unattainable. Mystery and desire go hand in hand. It would make no sense to desire something that did not intrigue one’s mind and senses. That would be boring. Instead, most people spend their time striving for objects in the chase. The chase excites them, not the beauty. Medusa most definitely lost her beauty as she entered into Gorgon-hood. Why did people still long to look at her face? Desire grabbed hold of them. They knew she used to be beautiful, and they believed they would be the ones to see her as beautiful again. The wanted something they knew, deep down, they could not have.
This legacy has remained true throughout the years. Attraction to the beautiful lightly draws in a few. But to really grasp someone’s attention, the beauty must exist in the mystery and the unknown. Anyone can grasp or attain beauty. But to attain the beauty that comes through mystery and intrigue presents another difficulty. The tease of wanting what one cannot have remains.
Perseus the Hero
Seth TufvessonThis story begins immersed in darkness in the early morning hours of February. It was the beginning of an ordinary day in Vietnam more than thirty years ago. The heat was mild, the humidity controlled. An American convoy was moving along a road in the Republic of Vietnam, a short distance from Cam Lo. Their mission was to resupply an American command there. Along the way, they were ambushed by a mine detonated in the middle of the road. In no time, enemy mortar rounds were whistling down on their position.
Lance Corporal Thomas Creek, a nineteen-year-old Marine from Missouri, was in charge of a rifle squad assigned as a security force for the convoy. When the convoy came under ambush, he and his men were quick to return fire. They fought for an eternity of minutes, maybe even seconds, beneath the concussive slam of explosions, the overwhelming scent of burning fuel, the heat of fire, cold sweat, resonating pulses, the deafening noise of gunfire, the kick of rifles, and the distinct scent of carbon and burned gun powder resting along the edges of expelled brass ammunition casings. During the fight Lance Corporal Creek noticed a more effective firing position, and ran for it across the scene of chaos. While moving through a gully with his men, he was struck by enemy fire and fell. Shortly thereafter a grenade was thrown into the gully. With his remaining strength, Creek rolled on the grenade and absorbed the impact. Here ends the story.
The important factor to be examined in this case is how the American people define Lance Corporal Creek. Naturally they call him a hero, and embellish his memory with praises like: “for conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty at the cost of his own life.” But why do we call him a hero? When one looks universally at heroes, there are typically three factors that establish them as heroes. The first is an internal distinction, an inclination to do extraordinary deeds for a just cause—a compelled sense of commitment to some sort of duty. The second is a physical distinction. It describes a hero based on physical deeds or merit and the accomplishment of a quest or a mission. It is defined by physical difficulties, and the application of a hero’s strengths and abilities to overcome those physical obstacles and challenges. The third factor is the most important: it is the primary challenge at the climax of the journey—the monster, the foe. The final obstacle to be overcome marks the importance of the mission. It is the qualification of all the heroes’ strengths both internal and external; it defines a certain level of greatness and labels him for all of time.
We define Lance Corporal Creek as a hero. The vital question is why? To answer this question, we will apply the three factors described above to qualify him as a hero. The internal drive and motivation to embrace challenges of heroic proportion began in a recruiting station in Amarillo, Texas, when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. His commitment to a binding life or death obligation indicates a severe dedication to the quest that he would undertake. Lance Corporal Creek’s quest could be measured along many different milestones, but for the purpose of defining him as a hero, we will declare that his journey began when he first arrived in Vietnam and ended at the final climactic battle on February 13th.
This brings us to the climactic battle against his ultimate foe, the Vietcong. It is the Vietcong that define his heroism, particularly because they were a formidable, difficult, and changeable force to be confronted. They were difficult to fight. They hid in the shadows, and struck in ambushes and raids. They were invisible, a force that varied tactics and methods and could not be singularly defined as an enemy against which purely conventional tactics could be used. They could not be defined in their likeness or identity, and it was this formidability that measured, tested, and finally proved the hero’s abilities. Clearly, the most important factor in the determination of a hero is his nemesis, because it is the nemesis that tests and proves a hero’s inner metal.
Let us move now to a different time and place, a different hero and a different nemesis. In this case the hero is the mythological figure Perseus, and the nemesis, perhaps the most controversial, formidable, lethal, and haunting one for many heroes across time, the mortal gorgon Medusa. In the essay Macbeth: The Male Medusa, Marjorie Garber states, “In classical mythology the story of Medusa is one of the exploits of the hero Perseus, the son of Zeus and of a mortal woman Danae”(Garber 82). For the purposes of this paper it is vital to understand that this is the tale of the conquest of Medusa by Perseus. It is the conquest of Medusa that defines Perseus as a hero. There are many different perspectives on the capabilities of Perseus and the validity of his heroism. In the next portion of this paper we will define Perseus as a hero by looking at the same three factors that defined Lance Corporal Creek as a hero in the eyes of America.
In the case of Perseus, the most important factor defining his heroism is his internal qualifications. Perseus is a hero because he chose to embark on a quest that none other would. Without disregarding the fact that the quest itself was an arduous one, we must recognize that Perseus’ mental strength is what makes him a hero. The poem “Perseus” from Ann Stanford’s In Mediterranean Air uses the perspective of Perseus’ to inquire about his conquest over Medusa: “Was I really a hero?/ or was it the weapons? Could anyone have done it?”(lines 60-61). Clearly the answer to that question is no.
The quest for Medusa begins shortly before the marriage of Polydectes, the King of Seraphus, to Perseus’ mother Danae. Polydectes requires his guests to furnish horses as a wedding gift; naturally, Perseus is unable to meet this request. Polydectes then orders Perseus to bring him the head of Medusa instead, under the assumption that Perseus will be killed in the process of accomplishing the impossible task. Perseus immediately and belligerently accepts the task. This decision is critical because it is this moment that truly defines Perseus as a hero. The task of slaying Medusa was an impossible one for any mortal, and most would have refused in shame, but Perseus does not. By committing to an impossible battle with Medusa, Perseus commits himself to death.
Peter Shaffer best illustrates Perseus’ heroic conviction in the play The Gift of the Gorgon. In the following dialogue between Persues and the goddess Athena, he presents two crucial elements to the heroic identity of Peresus.“PERSEUS: [calling out]: Athena Hellinica, Athena Scholaastica! Athena Supportiva! Inspirer of the fearful! Sustainer of the Sacred! Appear to me now! A fool implores you.
ATHENA: I hear you Perseus! Why are you scared?
PERSEUS: I have made a vow and cannot keep it. Now I must spend the rest of my days in shame.
ATHENA: What vow?
PERSEUS: To kill the Gorgon. The snake-haired Gorgon, Medusa.”(Shafer 40-41).
The two important elements to notice in this dialogue are 1) Perseus’ adamant sense of conviction, and 2) Perseus’ belligerent attitude. Perseus understands how lethal his vow is to himself; that provides us with an example of his bravery and commitment. An ordinary man might make the same impossible vow and cast it off, or possibly refuse. When Perseus describes shame he describes the predicted shame of failure to accomplish a task, not failure to attempt a task. He understands that he will almost certainly face his doom in his quest for the head of the gorgon, but he cannot refuse the task after he has made his vow. He will thence fail, and his memory will be subject to the shame of failure. This brings us to the topic of his belligerence. He makes the vow to decapitate Medusa in haste. The root of that haste demonstrates Perseus’ heroic inclination. It bears almost a childish mentality in the firmness and speed of such a vow. When Perseus looks back on his haste, he identifies himself as a fool. He believes that he has sentenced himself to death, and, in realization of this, claims, “Than I am lost! I might as well be stone already!”(Shaffer 41). This statement brings us back to the topic of conviction: because Perseus after all realizes the foolishness of his conviction, but is too committed to violate his agreement. Logically, an ordinary man would seek to preserve himself rather than honor a mere spoken promise, but Perseus cannot. It is that distinction which all his heroic actions are based upon.
Perseus’ physical journey for Medusa marks his second qualification as a hero. Throughout the quest Perseus uses his cunning and physical ability to demonstrate his heroism in two minor occasions. The first is his exploitation of the Graeae, three gray haired women that share one eye and one tooth. By tricking the Graeae and stealing the eye and tooth, Perseus obtains three items essential for defeating Medusa. The Mirror of the Gorgon describes these items as, “prodigious/ sandals’ heavier-than-air device, the cowl/ or a purloined intelligence, the pouch of blackmail”(“Perseus,” from the collection The Mirror of the Gorgon). Perseus used the sandals mainly to escape Medusa’s two sisters, the cowl to mask himself from Medusa’s sight, and the pouch to hold Medusa’s head. The second occasion in which Perseus demonstrates his heroic ability is the rescue of Andromeda when returning from Medusa’s cave. In this case he attacks and kills a sea monster, thus rescuing Andromeda. Both of these events are minor, but the point is that they do prove that Perseus demonstrated some heroic ability over the course of the quest that was his own. In the first case he demonstrates cunning and in the second combative ability. Essentially what these events do is give Perseus credit as a physically capable hero, because he does not prove his physical worth in decapitating Medusa. It is primarily the gifts of the gods that allow Perseus to cut off the head of Medusa. He is “armed with an adamantine kris/ Hermes had lent him,” and, “above all indispensable,/ the shield Athena gave, whose burnished metal/ served as an intervening mirror of the Gorgon”(Clampitt 23). In many ways these weapons, more than innate ability, that help Perseus accomplish the mission, which is why it is so important to recognize that Perseus has such strong heroic convictions.
The final factor that establishes Perseus as a hero is the monster, Medusa. He is heroic because he attempts to do combat with the most formidable foe, and he confirms that heroism by succeeding. Even without the help of the gods, Perseus is still heroic in his quest for Medusa based on the degree of difficulty involved in defeating Medusa. To fully understand the formidability of the challenge, we need to examine the gorgon. Marjorie Garber describes the threat of the gorgon in this way:
“The most famous of the Gorgons was Medusa, one of three sisters in Greek mythology, whose hair was said to be entwined with serpents, whose hands were brass, their bodies covered with scales, their bodies covered with scales, their teeth like boars tusks. When gazed upon, they turned the onlooker to stone”(81).
Medusa is one of the most devastating opponents in mythology. She is terrifying to look at because of the frightfulness of her appearance, but also because of the lethal consequences of looking upon her. However, the most formidable aspect of Medusa is held not merely in her existence as a living being, but also in the changeable nature of her existence. After Perseus has decapitated her, her head is continues to be just as threatening. Garber claims, “Homer speaks of the Gorgon as a disembodied head, whether he is describing an ornament or an actual monster”(83). In accordance with this belief, Medusa really is no different whether she is the head of a monster or a complete monster. The fearful part of this understanding is that Medusa can never truly die, because even in death the threat of her power is preserved.
Medusa completes Perseus as a hero, not because she was difficult for him to vanquish, but because he accepted custody of her. His heroic deed was not in killing her: with the proper weapons anyone truly could complete the task, as Stanford suggests. Though of course we might ask if Perseus kills Medusa? Perhaps he just possesses her. Because there is essentially no difference between a gorgon and a gorgon’s head, death becomes irrelevant to Medusa. Under these terms Athena could have just as well granted Perseus magical bonds to restrain Medusa, or Polydectes could just as well have ordered Perseus to bring him the gorgon. Perseus kills the sea monster that Andromeda is left for as an offering, but his doing so does not complete him as a hero. Medusa is different than the typical monster. True, that Perseus kills her, but that is not as important as the fact that he defines her. It is almost as if he barred a shape shifting creature from changing shape, and even in doing so he merely achieves victory on the physical level. She is extraordinary; it takes an extraordinary monster to make an extraordinary hero. Perseus would truly be nothing without the gorgon: he depends on his foe, and his foe establishes his greatness.
Now that Perseus has been established as the hero of the story, it is important to further explore the relationship between the hero and the monster. One of the most unusual factors in the relationship between the hero and the monster is sex. Medusa represents the remnants of a woman so beautiful that Poseidon raped and beautified goddess Athena saw her as a threatening. Regardless of monsters and mortals, when the issue of males and females is brought to light, the issue of relationships must be confronted.
I will digress for a moment and return to the topic of Vietnam to help illustrate the issue of relationships. An American soldier who fought against the Vietcong in numerous skirmishes commented on the relationship between American soldiers and Vietcong soldiers. He claimed that in their dealings they had a specific relationship, almost like a lover’s game. They played by a universal series of rules that was never explained by either side, but both mutually agreed upon the rules. It was a game, the two met on the field of battle and fought. Some died on either side, and they hated one another for it, but in a strange sense they respected and loved one another for it as well. For some American soldiers it became an addiction: they had to repeat the game over and over and confront one another again and again.
In the novel A Severed Head Iris Murdoch describes a sort of lover’s game between a Perseus figure, Martin Lynch-Gibbon, and a Medusa figure, Honor Klein. From the second that Martin meets Honor, they engage in an addictive, negative sort of relationship. Martin is repulsed by Honor, and she thinks worse of him, yet whenever Martin stumbles across her in various settings he develops an addiction to her. The meetings between Honor and Martin reach their climax in their confrontation in the wine cellar of the Pelham Crescent. In this setting they engage in a battle of honesty, in which they reveal their identity to one another. In the preceding scenes they are strangers. Honor always appears as a shadowy figure to Martin: he can never truly define her. She is changeable in her darkness; he begins by wondering whether or not she is a woman; and he maintains that curiosity as he tries to understand her, thrown off constantly by her unusual and sometimes highly absurd lifestyle. In the following dialogue Martin and Honor engage one another in honest confrontation:“I said ‘You kindly introduce my mistress to my brother. That was charming of you.’
‘She asked me to,’ said Honor Klein after a pause.
‘And why did you do so with such alacrity? I cannot credit you with a kind heart”(Murdoch 110).The dialogue continues
“She said, ‘Oh it doesn’t matter. I did it on the spur of the moment. I thought it was time for her to see a new face.’
‘It matters to me.’ I said. ‘I wonder if you have any idea what a destructive person you are? I should be grateful if you keep you hands off my business in the future
‘We are not likely to meet in the future,’ said Honor Klein. ‘I am going back to Cambridge almost at once.’
‘You speak as if you are going to the North Pole.’ I said. ‘I wish it were! And I’m not the only one who’ll heave a sigh of relief.’
‘What do you mean?’
“Palmer and Antonia aren’t exactly delighted to have you hovering over them like a carrion crow.’
Honor Klein looked at me and her face twisted for a moment. Then she said, ‘You are drunk My Lynch-Gibbon, foully drunk, and even when you are sober you are stupid. Good night.’ She turned to go”(Murdoch 110).The first thing to observe in these two passages is the infliction of damage. It is a verbal quarrel that reflects the physical reality of the situation. Honor initiates a perceived attack on Martin’s social life by attacking people on an intimate level, for him, this means his mistress and ex-wife. Consequently he attacks her connection to Palmer and his Antonia. The attack has no direct relationship to Perseus lopping off Medusa’s head; however it does encompass the substance behind the quarrels with men and women. Jealousy, pain, and aggravation—these are in many ways the instruments with which men and women control dialogues between each other. It cannot be avoided that although Martin is furious with Honor, and the offense that she takes to that causes her to match his mood, he attempts to continue the bout. Every insult by Martin is essentially a method of welcoming another attack from her. Does it enhance the conversation? Does it achieve anything in the name of negotiation? No. However, it does prolong the conversation, allowing Martin a better chance to prolong his fascination for Honor.
Fascination is the root of attraction between men and women, whether it is a positive or negative relationship. This fascination directly relates back to the attraction between Medusa and Perseus. Perseus does hold a strong fascination for Medusa. That is why he must see her before he decapitates her. He must look into the reflection in his shield and see her face. Martin must engage Honor in order to learn the truth about her, to feed his fascination—his fixation is on the truth. In The Gift of the Gorgon Athena instructs Perseus to look upon the truth. In fact she orders him to do so: “Last, the Shield of Showing! My own shield, Perseus, never lent before! Look at the monster in this alone. The only way Man may ever see the truth—by reflection! Take it and kill well”(Shaffer 42). Man must learn the truth, of their fixation on women, the fixation of Martin has for Honor. Truth is important as well in terms of honest conviction. A hero must have the truth.
The truth continues to unfold itself for Martin and Honor. Immediately after their dialogue, Martin makes an attack on Honor by grabbing her and wrestling with her. This scene marks the climax, where the truth began to engage in Martin and Honor’s relationship. The truth they find is an odd sort of love:“I relaxed my grip and curled one leg round hers, at the same time pushing her violently forward. She fell on her knees and I half fell on top of her, losing hold of her arm. We rolled over each other on the floor, I gave her my weight, trying to find her wrist. On her back now, she came against me with both hands pushing and clawing, and endeavored to drive her knee into my stomach. She fought like a maniac; but it was remarkable too that throughout our brief battle she did not cry out once”(Murdoch 111).
Although this a violent “fight,” follows a fierce argument, it resembles to a love scene. Strong visual images of rolling on one another, distributing weight, biting, and crying all allusioned to sex and orgasms. What we see in this scene is the love associated between hero and nemesis, the addictive bond. The key here is that after the climactic battle there is love. In the traditional mythological tale there is little left of Medusa to generate love. She lives on exclusively in the mortal danger that she possesses, which is equal to the danger when she haw while living. However, after Perseus slays Medusa, he finds Andromeda, the beauty he fixates on enough to temporarily draw him away from his mission. John Barth fully expresses the concept of love blossoming from the ashes of the final battle in the second book of Chimera, “Perseid.” In this passage he makes statements through Perseus, “We didn’t die down there at the climax, I can tell you that; simply we commenced our immortality here, where we talk together”(Barth 133). Just when Perseus’ confronts Medusa he becomes the immortal hero, and Medusa becomes his immortal foe. No one internalizes Medusa as a head, even though the threat remains in her lifeless head, the monster resides in the full figure. This is different than directly examining Medusa for her lethal ability whether she is whole or not. In this scenario we are examining the being that she is looked upon in relation to Perseus after the myth’s climactic battle.
After the climactic battle between Perseus and Medusa, the key factor that allows love to be gathered is control in terms of the hero. At the beginning of any conquest, the hero appears to be at a disadvantage because that which he has accomplished lags sorely behind that which he needs to accomplish. In other words, the entire journey is spread out before him. However at the conclusion of the battle, when the monster has been defeated, the hero has a sense of control. In A Severed Head, after Martin confronts Honor, he gains a sense of control, not only in terms of their relationship, but also in terms of his life in general. To truly be comfortable the hero must have control of the battle. The power of the gorgon is just as lethal whether she is a head, or an entity, but when she is a head, Perseus wields her as a weapon, a tool, something that he possesses and remains in complete control of.
Garber states, If the Gorgon’s head in the effect precede and preempt the bodies that support him, in what sense can we say of Macbeth that his real potency only begins when the head is severed, and he becomes an apotropaic object?(83). This question speaks in agreement with the previously defined conception of the hero. He is only the hero after he has slain the monster and proves his worth; only then does he maintain true control as the hero. This concept is proven when we look at Perseus actions after freeing Andromeda, when he is in control of the head of the gorgon. At that point the head no different to him than Athena’s shield: it is a tool and an object. When Atlas angers Perseus, he turns him to stone. When Perseus lands at the wedding banquet, he essentially unleashes his rage on the crowd. At first he attacks in his defense, but when the fight is finished, vengeance seems as much Perseus’ motive:
“Still, you, O’Polydectes, king of Seriphos, softened neither by the young man’s virtue, visible in all his efforts, nor by his suffering, nursed a harsh and unrelenting hatred, and there was no limit to your baseless anger. You disparage the praise given him, and accused his account of the killing of Medusa of being a lie. ‘I will give you evidence of its truth. Friend, protect your eyes! Cried Perseus, and with the face of Medusa he turned the face of the king to bloodless stone'(Ovid 3).In the passage above Perseus is no longer acting as the hero on a mission. The fact of the matter is, however Perseus chooses to utilize it, that the head of the Gorgon is powerful under his control because he defines it with his vengeance. The power comes from his unity and finalized control over the once person, now object.
Medusa is perhaps the greatest foe that any man might face. She is a challenge for a hero, a challenge than no other man would have the metal to face. She is a changeable, lethal opponent, who is no less lethal in death than in life. The gorgon: a hero’s challenge. What in the end does that mean? It means that it is a challenge on all levels. Medusa is not merely a threat in the combative sense. In the combative sense she is an undefeatable foe, an enemy of equal power in both life and death. However, beyond the scope of the hero on the battlefield, altogether deadlier she is the unanswered question between men and women. Where does the truth lie in love? Where do the games end and the honesty truly begin? And is there really any difference between the games and honest love. In the end there are no definitive answers to these questions, at least not for the hero, not for the man who establishes himself as a man of great commitment to the quest, who can match that commitment with physical skill, and prove himself in one final challenge. With Medusa there is no final challenge: it is unending. After the final confrontation, there is the unending confrontation of love, between man and woman, and between man and power and Medusa the perpetual foe that can at best be contained in combat, but neither totally conquered nor completely defined in the full scope of truth.