You should read the story of Lilith, it's worse. Eve is the second wife after Lilith. Lilith gets turned into a life sucking demoness who kills babies because she had wanted to have sex with her on top of Adam and this was 'evil.'
Religion has been an excuse for oppressing women for far too long. You should check out The History Channel's banned from The Bible. It's really fascinating. Apparently Mary Magdoline (who was NOT a prostitute- but actually had been possessed by demons; the prostitution part is just a very popular misconception since the thirteenth century) was originally an apostle but many male early Christians couldn't handle that so the notion of her being an apostle was quickly dropped.
There's also some evidence that Mary Magadalene's being made into a prostitute was as a result of there being another Mary in the vicinity who was a prostitute, and somehow the two got bastardized together.
Sorry about the typo. I heard that if you read the original Bible passage in it's original language (before the King James version) it is apparent it's talking about two separate women. Mary Magdalene was possessed by demons and the other mentioned was a prostitute. Apparently the first to mistake the two as one person was a thirteen or fourteenth century (I forget which) Pope but since many choose to believe the pope is infailable... it stuck.
Actually, a quick read shows that there were 3 Marys that got mixed up (oy!) and we can "thank" Pope Gregory for declaring she was a prostitute. However, about 30 years ago the Roman Catholic Church supposedly finally said there was no biblical evidence supporting that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute.
I had the pleasure of reading Paradise Lost in my Intro to Gender Studies class a couple of semesters back. There's actually a way to read Eve's character through the eyes of feminism; for instance, how it wasn't her bringing the fruit to Adam that brought the world into sin - she brought the fruit to Adam because she wanted to share what she had found to the man whom she loved and wanted to make happy, and it was Adam's fault for the fall of mankind because he wasn't "manly" enough to say no to temptation. One can also read Paradise Lost in a satirical way, and see a rather pointed criticism of God in Adam and Adam in God, and their mutual, tyrannical ways.
I'll make no excuses for Milton, though; guy was apparently a first-rate jerk.
Another feminist way to slant it is this. The apple is from the 'tree of knowledge.' Woman partake of the fruit of knowledge first. meaning women understand things intellectually quicker than men. :-P
I reject such ironic reading of the text because Milton is not only repetitive, but insistent to the fact of Eve's weakness and lack of accountability.
One thing to keep in mind is that people like trying to deconstruct texts in opposite modes of reading. My English professor got an essay published where she defending Iago as a good guy who meant no harm in Othello. However, self-admittedly, she really did that just because she thought it would be a fun challenge and felt like there wasn't a whole lot more original to say about that play. Intellectuals play these games with themselves to keep things interesting and keep the dialog going. It's certainly a productive way to spend your time, but you must always take academia with a grain of salt.
LOL, I'm not an expert, so take my "hey, I learned this in my intro class" with a grain of salt as well ;) But just as you're trying to show me the necessity of more than one way to read things, I was doing the same ;) For what it's worth, I can't stand Paradise Lost.
Ever read any Greek Mythology? The story of Pandora, in Hesiod's Theogony he describes that Prometheus stole secrets and fire from the Gods and as punishment Zeus got all the Gods to create a beautiful woman who would be man's punishment. The reason being, she would be lazy and spend all of man's money. However if he chose not to marry he would be alone and would have nobody to care for him in old age and would have no sons to pass his possessions on to. If he does marry his wife will destroy the household from the inside
( ... )
Not to mention Helen. And Persephone, cause of winter in her weakness.
One can find anti-woman sentiment basically everywhere in the world (if not straight-up everywhere in the world). Nevertheless, I find Paradise Lost to be a particularly atrocious example, where the misogyny actually detracts from the text as a whole.
Persephone I never cared for, but her mom? Demeter messed things up so badly for mankind when she missed her daughter that Zeus had to get involved and piss off his brother to get Persephone back!
Oh, Helen. What a raving bitch. Not all that came out of Greek culture/mythology was completely negative toward women (though a lot of it was, but what can you expect from a culture which didn't consider women as citizens?). The Trojan Women by Euripedes does a surprising job in showing the plight of women at that time.
I don't really understand how 'feminism got set back fifty years' when Paradise Lost was written, and thus relevant to the points of views of the time, in or around 1650-1660. It, and literature like it, is an important part of our society. Whilst the fairly anti-female views within the poem are no longer considered modern, that in itself is a concept still relevant to culture today. Not to acknowledge where we have made mistakes in our past is to doom ourselves to repeat the same mistakes in the future. No literature is ever truly "obsolete," even if some things about it seem absurd to us
( ... )
Your complaints are already responded to within the text I wrote. The problem is not that Milton includes misogynistic material, it's that the misogynism BECOMES the material. I am not saying that feminism was set back to the year 1615 because this is published in 1665, I'm saying that I'm surprised people in the modern day accept this kind of text without questioning it. And that last point is significant because a piece of literature may have its historical importance, but it doesn't truly "stand the test of time" unless people of the times continually test what it stands for
( ... )
as an english major and librarianqueenmomcatDecember 16 2009, 01:42:51 UTC
If it's any comfort (in regards some of the other comments), there are a lot of Works of Great Literature which leave me wondering "Why is this so lauded?" I have to know them, as a librarian, but I don't intend to read all of them; heck, I still haven't finished the Decameron.
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Religion has been an excuse for oppressing women for far too long. You should check out The History Channel's banned from The Bible. It's really fascinating. Apparently Mary Magdoline (who was NOT a prostitute- but actually had been possessed by demons; the prostitution part is just a very popular misconception since the thirteenth century) was originally an apostle but many male early Christians couldn't handle that so the notion of her being an apostle was quickly dropped.
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There's also some evidence that Mary Magadalene's being made into a prostitute was as a result of there being another Mary in the vicinity who was a prostitute, and somehow the two got bastardized together.
Reply
Sorry about the typo. I heard that if you read the original Bible passage in it's original language (before the King James version) it is apparent it's talking about two separate women. Mary Magdalene was possessed by demons and the other mentioned was a prostitute. Apparently the first to mistake the two as one person was a thirteen or fourteenth century (I forget which) Pope but since many choose to believe the pope is infailable... it stuck.
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I'll make no excuses for Milton, though; guy was apparently a first-rate jerk.
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Another feminist way to slant it is this. The apple is from the 'tree of knowledge.' Woman partake of the fruit of knowledge first. meaning women understand things intellectually quicker than men. :-P
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One thing to keep in mind is that people like trying to deconstruct texts in opposite modes of reading. My English professor got an essay published where she defending Iago as a good guy who meant no harm in Othello. However, self-admittedly, she really did that just because she thought it would be a fun challenge and felt like there wasn't a whole lot more original to say about that play. Intellectuals play these games with themselves to keep things interesting and keep the dialog going. It's certainly a productive way to spend your time, but you must always take academia with a grain of salt.
Especially intro classes. Dear lord...
--PolarisDiB
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One can find anti-woman sentiment basically everywhere in the world (if not straight-up everywhere in the world). Nevertheless, I find Paradise Lost to be a particularly atrocious example, where the misogyny actually detracts from the text as a whole.
--PolarisDiB
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Yeah, Demeter was cool.
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