From The Archives 9: Psyche and the Greek Female Heroine
If you're wondering when I'll stop referencing Greek Mythology, the answer is probably never. I'm glad that I was able incorporate it into my work at New College so much, because I absolute adore it, and I also absolutely hate writing about subjects that I'm not interested in. The cool thing was that I was able to write about Greek Mythology from a myriad of contexts, and so this one was also for my Religion & Gender class because *surprise!* mythology and religion are very closely intertwined. Maybe that's why I find them both so interesting?
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December 2016
Undoubtedly, gender roles and societal expectations were vastly different for women in Ancient Greece than for women in the Twenty-first century. Their religion, known now as Greek mythology, provides insight into the lives of women and how they were represented and thought of. The mortal women are often seen as pawns or vindictive creatures, and while the goddesses themselves do have a bit more power and strength, there are not many true mortal heroines in Greek myth. This essay tackles the importance of the hero’s journey and the existence of heroines, shows the common portrayals of mortal women in the myths, and then focuses on Psyche and the how and the why that her myth is a heroine’s journey. While Greek mythology vastly shows that mortal females are docile and marriageable or vindictive and powerful, Psyche is the closest to being a heroine because of the tasks she fulfills that encompass her hero’s journey.
Heroes and heroines are defined largely by the story arc of their lives and their accomplishments. Most stories start off with the prospective-hero at a place in their life where they do not have a purpose, and an opportunity that they can choose to take. They must take that opportunity and fulfill whatever tasks or trials are necessary to achieve their goal, and their behavior defines their growth as a person and as a hero. In the end, a hero has accomplished they set out to do, and becomes a better stronger person than what they started off as. Quite often they win a prize of some sort at the end, and a lot of the time it is a beautiful wife, or something in addition to a beautiful wife, but the greater lesson is in what they achieve throughout the journey. The purpose of the journey was for them to grow so that their life would have purpose or at least be greater than what it was before.[1]
While the story arc of a hero can be predicable, it is a format that started before the stories of Greek myth and lasts even up to today. There is debate over whether or not the term “Heroine” even exists within Greek myth or language.[2] Even in writings where it could be considered to exist, the heroines were referenced to in terms of their male family members or husbands also being well-known heroes. In the Odyssey, when the heroines in the underworld are mentioned it is phrased as “wives and daughters of the best men.”[3] It wasn’t until about the 5thcentury, 3 centuries later than the Odyssey, that the term heroine actually appeared. However, once it came into existence, it didn’t take long for it to be seen as a valid term.[4]
The existence of heroines matters for two main reasons. The first is that if women never hear stories of heroines, it is hard for them to believe that they could take the role that a heroine occupies. The second is that if men never hear stories of women being strong independent heroines, they too will never believe that women could represent that in real life. It is key to not think of these myths as just stories. While the magic from Greek myths didn’t necessarily exist, the roles women played within their society are represented by their myths. While myths are characterized now as being false explanations of things, usually including some form of magic, myths in their time was the explanation people believed as to how their world worked, and in that way, fulfilled the definition of religion, especially since it was their form of worship as well. Myths would be used to explain the emergence of certain cities, like Athens and Athena, or to explain phenomena like seasons, based of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Even in Athens’s supposed democracy, women were not citizens. Whether or not women could qualify as true heroines, or at least strong women not defined by their male family members, the females in Greek myth were not represented in that way.
The mortal women represented in myths commonly were the marriageable prize at the end of a hero’s journey. Or, they were an innocent but beautiful princess that Zeus impregnated and then left. Io was a priestess of Hera who was beautiful, and noticed by Zeus. In order to hide her from Hera, Zeus turned her into a cow. But Hera knew, and asked for the cow as a gift, thus putting the transformed Io under guard. Zeus then distracted the guard, impregnated Io, and then set her free where she wandered around until she became a human again and was able to have birth.[5]Not only did she not have any say towards Zeus’s affections, but she was literally transformed into a different animal and placed under guard where she could not escape and continue living the life she had been living. Since marriage at the time was focused more on economics and procreation rather than love, that left women to not always have a say towards whether they wanted to marry or not. Sometimes they became priestesses instead, and so didn’t have to marry, but a lot of the time they had to acquiesce to the decisions of the men in their lives.
Another common portrayal of women was as evil or vicious. Medea was married to Jason, which happened because she helped him while he was getting the Golden Fleece, going so far as to kill her own brother in order to enable Jason to succeed. After having a few kids, Jason abandons her, and so she enacts revenge by killing his bride and bride’s father before escaping, and in some versions, killing her own children in the process. Later on she comes into contact with Theseus and attempts to poison him as well.[6]Her anger is understandable in that she wasn’t given the ideal life, but her reactions are far from heroic. She has the power and ability to create an effect on her life, but the power is not a positive one. Taking power for herself was not as common of a thing in Greek life, and so a women in myth taking power for herself was not expected, and therefore not shown as a positive situation.
With this tropes used for the mortal women in Greek myth, it creates difficulty in finding a truly heroic female model. One of the few heroines to be found is Psyche. The origin of Psyche’s myth sets her up to be unusual. Her story is set within the work known as Metamorphosesor The Golden Assby Lucius Apuleius. Whereas a lot of the Greek myth, particularly starting with Homer, can be traced back to the 8thcentury, Psyche’s story was written in the 2ndcentury.[7] This timeline connects back to the origin of the term “heroine” because while most myths existed before the term existed; Psyche was written after it had existed for several centuries. While perhaps some of the women in the previous myths could be seen in a heroic light, one cannot understand something that doesn’t have existing language to explain it. Having the language to be able to explain something more creates better understanding and a greater likelihood that the concept will be represented and written about. Additionally, Apuleius was a Platonic philosopher, which indicates that Psyche’s story originated in less of a religious context than most of the other myths did. The allegory in her story was thus very intentional, and can be seen even in her very name, which means “soul” in Greek.[8]
Psyche’s story begins with her lack of interest in the suitors who are captivated by her beauty. Her beauty makes Aphrodite jealous, so Aphrodite asks her son, Eros/Cupid, to make her fall in love with someone. Instead, Eros falls in love with her himself and takes her away to marry him and live in a palace by herself that he would visit every night in the dark. The lack of knowledge as to who her husband is leads Psyche to take a lamp to look at him one night, but he is awoken and taken away from her. She then has to fulfill several tasks set by Aphrodite in order to get her husband back.[9]
Eros is the Greek word for love, so the myth of Psyche and Eros is the story of the marriage of love and soul. Psyche, a princess actually, has the potential to be the same as many other Greek love interests. She’s beautiful, royal, and of interest to the gods/goddesses. She also gets basically stolen away from a random strange Greek god. However, she falls in love with him, and makes determined efforts in their relationship. Eros tells her not to try to see him, but she disobeys that and brings a lamp to bed to find out who she was sleeping with. Even when that causes problems, she sets out to solve the problem and get her husband back, proving her love. Once she succeeds, she ends of getting granted immortality, which is a significant marker of the recognition of her once-secret marriage.
Even so, the focus of Psyche’s myth is on her transformation. The animal known to a symbol of Psyche is the butterfly, a creature also marked by transformation. The reason for her disobeying her husband was the pregnancy that she discovered, and that developed along her hero’s journey to get her husband back.[10] The transformation and creation within pregnancy, a largely female-dominated area, particularly in ancient Greek times, allows for Psyche to have a transformation myth specific to her. Especially since most of the rest of the Greek heroes were men, none of them had a hero’s journey following pregnancy.
The debate resides in whether Psyche’s heroine’s journey empowers her enough to call her a heroine or if there is too great a focus in her story on her husband, love, marriage, and birth. Though a hero’s journey often ends with rescuing a girl and getting married, the perspective that Psyche’s journey is too feminine and soft and focused on love can be a bit of a double standard. Of course, it would be ideal to also have a Greek heroine who’s story doesn’t revolve around a guy, but it is odd to consider real dedication to love to be feminine when the actual being in Greek myth with the name that translates to Love is a god. Just because her transformation coincides with her pregnancy does not lessen her potential to be a heroine. Factoring in the gender roles of the time as well, it does not make sense to expect a fully independent heroine, even as late as Psyche’s story was written.
Despite the unusual situation surrounding Psyche’s particular myth, she fits within, and has been looked at as another myth within the universe and religion of Greek mythology. It would be intriguing to further look at how Apuleius’s particular background led for this myth to be created and accepted as such, while also providing a background for a heroine’s story in a place where there aren’t many stories of heroines. Although she is not the perfect example of a heroine, and her story is tied to love, it does not take away from the transformative quality of the hero’s, or heroine’s, journey that she takes.
Bibliography
Doherty, Lillian Eileen. Gender and the Interpretation of Classical Myth. London: Duckworth, 2001.
Huber, Barbara Weir. Transforming Psyche. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.
Lyons, Deborah J. Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/book/33779
Rose, H. J. Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: An Introduction to Greek Mythology. New York: Meridian Books, 1958.
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