Women’s Image in Greek Mythology

Vivian (Chen Wen) 41491023 Eng1401

Women’s image in Greek Mythology

The Greek mythology is the product of the original spirit of the clan society and it is also the earliest European literary form. At the beginning, it was passed down from generation to generation through word of mouth; later, it was recorded in Homer’s epic and Hesiod's Theogony and many other ancient Greek poetry, drama, history and philosophy, all of these were reorganized as the ancient Greek mythology. What is more, the Greek mythology was divided into two parts, the story of Gods and the legend of heroes. However, Greek mythology not only concerns with the story of gods and heroes, it also shows “the rituals of the ancient Greeks.”^[1] The ancient Greek civilization is the cradle of all Western civilization, and many Western cultures were build on the basis of ancient Greek, westerners often quote ancient Greek mythology in order to show their value, such as people in Renaissance in the sixteenth century and later, the Enlightenment. As an effective carrier of Greek civilization, mythology bearing and containing with a wealth of historical information, and the colorful female images in Greek Mythology also provide a good aspect for people to learn about that period of time.

In Greek mythology, the universe was originally a chaos, it was not until many years later that the mother of the earth - Gaia, was born, and therefore, all the stories begin. Gaia in the case gave birth to Uranus (known as the father) without pregnancy, then the two combined and give birth to twelve giants of the Titan, the original god. The titans are combined with each other, give birth to the moon and stars, mountains and rivers, rain and lightning, and later Zeus and other Olympian gods, these can be said to be the descendants of Gaia. Another well-known women figure in Greek mythology is Athena. She was regarded as the purest, noble, divine goddesses among the other. Her image can be summed up in two aspects: on the one hand, she is brave, strong, beautiful, heroic in warfare, she had used wisdom to win Poseidon at the city of Athens; on the other hand, she is aggressive, narrow, vicious, cruel, and jealous. Medusa said that she is more beautiful than her, so she turned her into an ugly terrible gorgon. The myths about Athena often involve skill and art. In people's minds, Athena often appears in the face of the goddess of wisdom. She was regarded as the protector of science and peaceful labor...

Greek mythology shows the Greek society's history and culture of that period, among which the striking female images show how the social role of women in the early development of Greek society. It also shows the transition in women’s social status,

“In myth, there were essentially two main courses of female existence: celibacy or involvement with males and (inevitably) childbearing.”^[2] For women who are mortal, the second kind was more frequently seen and probably provide a more promising alternative, because only to goddesses like Athena and Artemis, the world offered them, since they had the power to defend themselves and by definition, they would not grow old as well. Many different female characters in it show how women’s role in society changes from dominating goddess to appendix to the men. “When social history develops from the matriarchal society to patriarchal era, women’s social role begins to change from manipulating to being manipulated.”^[3]