The Power of Women
The roles of women in each of our books are very different and fascinating. Each woman had different strengths and purposes, and used her femininity and sexuality to get what she wanted. It is clear that classical literature is all about women and their roles with men and in society. Men didn’t believe that women should be allowed any power, and believed that they were only good for marrying: “Euripides Hippolytus says in a rage that an imbecile wife might be good for nothing, but that a clever woman is intolerable. The logic was that what women would come up with on their own would be bad, so that it was better for a husband to fill up an empty vessel” (Ruden 101). Men thought that the women weren’t worthwhile, and yet playwrights and authors thought they were interesting enough to make them their heroines. Classical literature has an interesting mix of strong and weak female characters, but all of them are fascinating and brilliant.
Lysistrata is a story about a woman who knew what she wanted. She wanted her husband home, and the war to be over. She was a brave and charismatic woman who used her sexuality and mind to lead the women of her town to make a powerful statement: men will do anything for sex. Although this is not necessarily true, it creates an interesting and hilarious story about a woman who was willing to go the distance to achieve her goal. “If we sit in our quarters, powdered daintily, as good as nude in those imported slips, and-just- slink by, with crotches nicely groomed, the men will swell right up and want to boink, but we won’t let them near us, we’ll refuse- trust me, they’ll make a treaty in a dash (Ruden 11). She led the women of Athens and Sparta to halt all sex with their husbands until they ended the war. They used manipulation and torture to sway the men to listen to them, and even had to convince some of the women too: “You want your men. You don’t think they want you? They’re spending nasty nights outside your beds. Dear ladies, just be patient for a bit, and see our project through, clear to the end” (44). And in the end she proved that women are stronger than men, and she accomplished exactly what she wanted, the war ended and the men came home.
The Bacchae paints a very different picture of women, they kind that are controlled and made to do whatever they are told. These women were weak in many ways, the most pronounced were their inability to resist Dionysus’s power, and the second was that they didn’t stop themselves from being completely immersed in their maenad ways. These women reminded me of sheep because they followed Dionysus like sheep follow a Shepard. Perhaps this isn’t fair because Dionysus is incredibly powerful, and it would be impossible to not fall under his power, but that is not the point. Agave is one such woman, a woman who fell victim to the power of Bacchus and killed her son while in his trance. She was so consumed by the power that he had over her, that when she killed her own son, she didn’t even realize until much later when her father had to point it out to her. “Oh! What am I looking at? What am I carrying in my arms?... I see horrible pain. I am so miserable… No. It’s Pentheus. I have his head” (Euripides 52-3). It wasn’t until this moment of anagorsis that she had any idea of what she had done, and finally realized that the trophy she had in her hands was not in fact a lion, but the head of Pentheus.
Antigone is one of the strongest female characters that I have ever encountered. She is brave, honorable, strong and passionate. She didn’t follow the rules of society, Creon’s rules, but followed her heart and did what she thought was right. She felt that her brother deserved to be buried, and she did this even though it was against the law. She was a maverick, one of the first of her kind. She reminded me of Rosie the Riveter because she was not afraid to do what she thought was right and acted like a ‘man’ when it was taboo and forbidden. Antigone realized that she may be shamed in this life, but if she upheld the decrees of the gods, that she would be rewarded in her afterlife. “What laws? I never heard it was Zeus who made that announcement. And it wasn’t justice, either. The gods below didn’t lay down this law for human use. And I never thought your announcements could give you- a mere human being- power to trample the gods’ unfailing, unwritten laws” (Sophocles 19). She believed that if she did what she knew was right, she would die with honor.
There aren’t many women in the Symposium, but the one worth mentioning was one of the most memorable characters at the party, and she wasn’t even there. The women dancers and entertainers had to leave the room before the men could start talking, but still one remained. After all of the men said what love meant to them, Sophocles, in a very Sophoclean way, claimed that he learned all he knew about love from an old woman named Diotema. “After this he must think that the beauty of people’s souls is more valuable than the beauty of their bodies, so that if someone is decent in his soul, even though he is scarcely blooming in his body, our lover must be content to love and care for him and to seek to give birth to such ideas as will make young men better. The result is that our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of activities and laws and to see that all this is akin to itself, with the result that he will think that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance” (Plato 58). She knew what real love was, and taught Sophocles to believe in what love could be.
All of the mortal women in The Metamorphoses of Ovid were victimized by the gods and goddesses. They were either raped or transformed by the ones that they were supposed to be worshiping. Each beautiful virgin was raped, and then penalized by her family and sometimes by Juno as well. For example, in Europa’s story, she was innocently walking along the beach and then was tricked and raped by Zeus. “Europa now is terrified; she clasps on horn with her right hand; meanwhile the left rests on the bull’s great croup. She turns to glance back at the shore, so distant now. Her robes are fluttering- they swell in the sea breeze” (Ovid 73). Another story of the gross injustice that befalls the mortal women is that of Arachne. She was such a brilliant weaver that Minerva grew jealous and transformed her into a spider. “The goddess sprinkled the juices of the herbs of Hecate over Arachne; at that venom’s touch, her hair and then her eyes and ears fell off, and all her body sank. And at her sides, her slender fingers clung to her as legs. The rest is belly; but from this, Arachne spins out a thread; again she practices her weaver’s art, as once she fashioned webs” (183). These poor women were the victims of lecherous and evil men, and couldn’t defend themselves because they were tricked so conniving.
There aren’t many leading women in The Golden Ass, but one of the most beautiful stories of all time was told to a woman, by a woman, starring a woman. The wonderful story of ‘Cupid and Psyche,’ is a love story between a foolish young girl and a foolish young god. Psyche was young and innocent, but also naive and very stupid. The women in this story are at both ends of the spectrum, Psyche is all of the things mentioned, but also a good person, while her sisters are evil, corrupt and cruel. So evil, that they put King Lear’s Regan and Goneril to shame. Psyche’s sisters manipulated her into testing Cupid and not trusting him, which ruined their marriage. Both of them thought that they deserved to be with Cupid, because they were not happy with their husbands: “My husband’s older than Father, balder than a pumpkin and as puny as a little boy; and he locks up everything in the house with bolts and chains,” while the other one said “My husband, is even worse than yours. He’s doubled up with sciatica, which prevents him from sleeping with me more than once in a blue moon, and his fingers are so crooked and knobby with gout that I have to spend half my time massaging them” (Apuleius 109). They were inherently evil, especially compared with the sweet and kind Psyche. Because of her stupidity she was forced to go through great trials, while pregnant, to prove her love to Cupid. She was put up against jealous and evil Venus, who desperately wanted her to fail, but she triumphed, showing that good always wins over evil.
There were many different roles that the women played through the literature we read. Some were strong, others weak, and some were victimized by the evil. They each had an important role to play in their story, and each taught the reader something interesting about what the women in their time period wanted to be, and gave wonderful examples of what a woman should or shouldn’t be. These women where so influential to the stories of today that nothing we know would exist without them. Shakespeare got all of his ideas from Ovid, and all of the stories, books and movies that are popular today feature women like these.
Agave: 
Arachne: 
