Preview

Pandora Myth Affirms The Gender Dynamics Of Ancient Greek Culture

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
267 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pandora Myth Affirms The Gender Dynamics Of Ancient Greek Culture
In ancient Greece, women were virtually invisible to those outside the home and their reputation was best when there was “the least possible talk about you among men, whether in praise or blame” (Thucydides 1.45.2). There was a Greek Proverb that said “a woman knew two great moments of her life: her marriage and her death” (Powell, 40). In ancient Greek culture, women were normally seen as objects for marriage and childbearing and in literature were often depicted with an uncontrollable sexual appetite causing them to lie and scheme. The Pandora myth affirms the gender dynamics of ancient Greek culture. This is shown by the way Hesiod describes Pandora, his attitude toward women, and his opinion about women’s roles and work.
The way Hesiod

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The treatment and stigma towards women is constantly evolving. It varies from country to country, and it changing even today. As war driven cultures started to take over, freedom and respect for women decreased in ancient societies. Their freedom, rights, and societal status were ever changing in history. For this paper, the focus will be on the Ancient Minoa, Classical Athens, and the Roman Empire.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nimis (2007) argues that aspects of Medea reflect this othering of women and foreigners by way of the Athenian autochthony myth and the divisive attitudes this creates regarding females. The original autochthony myth of Athens speaks of the men as being “born of the earth” following the attempted rape of Athena at Hephaestus’ hand whilst the women are described with the “complementary” myth of Pandora and the ‘tribe of women’ who are notably “fashioned from” (400) as opposed to “born from” the Earth, thus creating a clear distinction between women and men even in myth. Cartledge (1997) goes on to explain that it is with the autochthony myth attempting to separate the men as being contradistinctive from the women that a deeply political class based stasis re-emerged to further divide what was supposed to be a ‘united’ Athens (28). In relation to the Bacchae, this cultural context has not changed and in fact neither has the portrayal of women – the chorus of East Asian Bacchae are still wild, foreign and ‘other’ in their characterisation just as Medea…

    • 1845 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Role Of Pandora In Greek

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Pandora is a mythical character who played a very important role in Greek society because she is said to have released all of the world's badness with only a small consolation in return. She is what the Greeks believed to be the beginning of badness and evil in the world, two things not easily explained.…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In most Greek mythology there is a general hostility towards the female sex, which relays that most poets and writers themselves were sexist. Throughout Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days, women are portrayed in a very subservient manner, placing them far below men and are almost despised. However, in more than one instance, manipulation, women’s true power, is shown. They are constantly described as beautiful temptresses, which could be thought of as the weakness of many men. When Theogony and Works and Days are looked at as a whole it is obvious that Hesiod’s opinion of women, most likely shared by the Greeks themselves, is that they are inferior and subordinate to men.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Within the Hesiod's works, the Theogony and the Works and Days, he made a clear distinction as to what the Greeks saw as valuable in their world. Specifically speaking about gender roles, the strengths and power of men were represented to have been the dominating and valued greatly. Women on the other hand while were not viewed as highly, but they just as important as men in the society. Distinctly, every time a female immortal appeared, Hesiod gave the traits of fertility and cunning intelligence, and to a smaller extent trickery, to be associated with each immortal. Mortal women were given the same treatment as they were essential to the everyday lives of men.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women in Atienct Greek litetrue are describe in "Putting Her in Her Place: Women, Dirt, and Desire" by Anne Carson, as being wet, polluted, leaky and cold. This is used to describe the fact that many Greek writers such as Aristotle and Hesiod believed women to be more irrational than man, and unbounded to anything as men are, meaning women were more prone to sexual desires, jealousy, and emotions. Carson ties interesting points of his argument to certain Greeks myths, and the cultural norms these myths creates. The first being the myth of Pandora, the first women created by the gods for revenge, being the down fall of man. He ties this back to the use of the word polluted, pollution or other variations of the word used when describing women. Polluted is used to describe a women’s touch upon man will pollute him.The other was the myth of Zeus putting a veil on chaos…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although it is clear women in Homer’s The Odyssey are hierarchically lower than men, and have to follow societal norms and the orders of men, women also have the power to disrupt and distract Odysseus’ journey home.…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The literature of this sort of masculine society, of which the Iliad and Odyssey are examples, aptly illustrates these social conventions. The themes of these works are subjects which are of interest to men; warfare, hunting, the problems of the warrior and ruler, and so forth. That which would concern women, such as domestic affairs, is not involved in this literature, or is dealt with only casually. Keeping in mind this important attribute of epic poetry, which is the direct result of its social and intellectual environment, one cannot help noting the great difference between the Odyssey and all other epic poems. No other literary work of this period, or of a similar cultural background, gives such a prominent position to women. No reader of the Odyssey can help having vivid memories of the poem’s outstanding female characters. There are many women in the Odyssey and all of them contribute in mean-ingful ways to the development of the action. Furthermore, they are treated seriously and with respect by the poet, as if there were no difference between his attitude toward them and his feelings toward the chieftains for whom his epic was composed. Among the memorable women in the poem are Nausicaa, the innocent young maiden; Arete, the wise and benevolent queen and mother; Circe and Calypso, the sultry and mysterious temptresses; Penelope, the ideal of marital devotion and fidelity; Helen, the respectable middle-class matron…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Penelope, the Odyssey

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This suggests that women of the society in Ancient Greece would be devoted and dependent on their husbands, but were also given options to pave their own paths. If tragedy were to strike, women would be able to…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    1. Considering the historical record (events/periods), demonstrate how periods of gain for women have been offset by losses using two or more examples from the text.…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Misogyny in Theogony

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Theogony, Hesiod expresses misogynistic notions and shows the triviality of the creation of women. Hesiod portrays the insignificant role for women. He uses marriage as a light-hearted yet serious judgment and stereotypes against all women. Hesiod explains the most misogynistic attitudes in the story of Pandora. He works misogyny into female monsters and goddesses that use their tricks on men. Hesiod displays the dominance of the male sex in his poem, Theogony.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Are the ancient biblical stories and the myths of the Greeks irredeemably male oriented? All ancient societies treated women as the inferior gender. It has been historically shown that in the ancient world, men were the leaders, heroes, and kings, and women served primarily as companions, helpers, and child-bearers. In the Old Testament and throughout ancient Greek literature, there is a constant theme of male superiority that cannot be ignored. Men did not believe that women were capable of existing as anything other than the typical “housewife;” it was unthinkable that a woman would actually need an education, let alone earn a living. Rarely was a woman seen doing anything but being dominated by males in some form, whether she was a man’s sexual object, a submissively devoted wife, or a woman being punished for doing what she believed was right. Women had no identities of their own; in every action, they were presided over by a stronger male counterpart. Because female characters lacked power and existed primarily to provide men with companionship and support, ancient Greek and biblical stories can be described as irredeemably male oriented. A woman’s primary role in ancient times was to serve as a companion to a male figure. The most common form of this companionship was as a wife. God created “the woman” because “It is not good for the human to be alone, I shall make him a sustainer beside him” (Genesis 2:18, p9). “The human” was living in a perfect environment, yet something was still missing. God decided that it would be human nature to desire and need a partner. Thus began the practice of wife-seeking. Men were able to choose whomever they desired to be their wife, an idea that is demonstrated in the book of Genesis “…the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were comely, and they took themselves wives howsoever they chose” (Genesis 6:2, p. 26). Women did not get to choose who they married. The entire concept of love, especially from a woman’s point of…

    • 2354 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The common view in ancient societies was often that this was a world of men; that women were inferior. There is often debate on the role of women in society, but in reality, women play an important role in any type of society, whether it be good or bad. Women in ancient Greece, China, and the Roman Empire were able to exercise influence into their culture despite the discrimination toward them. Although each society was different, women shared similar influences in their power, and restrictions in the aspect of marriage. Although most of these ancient cultures viewed women similarly, of these three locations, the women in the Roman Empire had it best.…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ancient Greece

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cheris Kramarae once said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people”. In today’s society marriage is a romanticized idea of living a life with the person you love, while in ancient Greece this was the last thing women were thinking about. In ancient vc cGreece women endured extremely difficult situation in many aspects of their lives. From marriage, to inheritance, to social life, lives of women were extremely difficult and these three elements combined created a civilization of submissive women.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To start with the basic roles women would have held in ancient societies in order to establish the superiority women held, an examination into the roles women had in households is necessary. Women in Ancient Greece would take care of the household. Women were believed to be forced to live completely within the household, rarely coming out except in the company of their husbands. Men wouldn’t allow the women to leave their homes. Women were basically like prisoners to their own homes. Even wealthy women were only supposed to stay at home and take care of the household, they had no public life. In numerous Greek homes, the top floors were the space of the women in the household. Women were not allowed to enter the room where their spouses had…

    • 149 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays