Revised Final Essay December 10, 2009

Callie Kitchen
Professor DeVries
English 3150
9 December 2009

                                                                                                                                                     Female Foils:
                                                                                                             An Evaluation of the Roles of Female in Literature

            How do females have power over their men dominators? For thousands of years, females have been the lesser gender, moving from a matriarchal society, to a predominately patriarchic society-which still dominates even today. In Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, females were simply foils to the males who dominated society and their lives. Females virtually had no power, and even goddesses would disguise their identities to man to have more authority and sway over the human race. In this essay, I will explore the impact females had on their male counterparts and on the texts themselves, using the theories of C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell. I plan to work with both the epics of Antigone and the Odyssey, using the Archetypal/Myth Criticism theory to explore the female role in ancient mythological literature.
            Throughout history women have been forgotten by literature and seen as less than worthy to be the center of attention, especially in a man’s world. Janet Hickman states in Beauty, Brains, and Brawn that “as subjects of historical research, women are more problematic than men, for in most times prior to our own, they appeared far less frequently than men in reference books and published records…the voices and images of women and children aren’t really missing from history, they are just less obvious,” (Hickman, “Truth as Patchwork,” 93). Antigone, as the focus of the story, is in fact an exception to this rule, but Penelope is a female that is not as obvious as other characters in the Odyssey, such as Telemakhos or Odysseus.  Strong women have been cast into the shadows as nothing more than dogs compared to their loud-talking husbands. When little girls grow up, a void is found in their lives when they search for female role models in the literature world. Yet, when reading the Odyssey and Antigone, two great ancient works of literature, strong women are found who provide a foil to their male counterparts, showing the less than chivalrous side of males.
           In the Odyssey, Odysseus leaves his wife, Penelope and small child, Telemakhos, behind while he triumphs the world with his manly acts of death. He is gone for many years, in which he falls prey to many women, including the goddess, Calypso. Although he is dishonest to his wife, Penelope remains faithful to him, never knowing if he is still alive. Portrayed as the typical rich housewife of the ages, she sits in her home, weaving and weaving the days away. Many suitors descend on the hall to try to plead her hand in marriage, for his purposes of course, and yet she does not sway. Penelope promises all of the suitors that as soon as she is done making a veil for her father-in-law’s death, she will marry one of them. Every day the suitors see her weaving this veil, but what they don’t see is truly one of the bravest acts of love in literature. While everyone else is deep in sleep, Penelope waits until it is safe and then begins to unravel the veil to begin anew in the morning. The suitors do not see her folly and are not alarmed until one of her handmaids tells of her trickery. The men are outraged, and yet, she still does not fall to the evils of the men. She remains strong, hoping that her husband will come home soon, and take over his place as the rightful owner of the land and of his wife.
             While she remains true and uses her cunning mind to trick the suitors to save herself for her husband, Odysseus does not use his cunning mind against the women he meets and thus falls into their beds. From each woman he meets, he learns a new lesson about life. The final lesson that he learns is that there is no greater thing in life than the love that he shares with his wife: the only woman that he wants, but can’t have. Thus, she is her husband’s foil showing all of his flaws and countering those flaws with her own.
            Another way to look at the character of Penelope, within the same idea, is that she is Odysseus’s unconscious or his anima. Applying Jung‘s theory here, men are only able to become fully actualized when they are joined by their counterparts who bring out the female aspects of his brain, or the anima. Females on the other hand are completed when the male side of the brain is realized, or the animus. Penelope, through her faithfulness shows Odysseus that true happiness is only found when your other half can share a life with you. 

             Several females, in the Odyssey, portray common archetypes throughout the literary spectrum. Archetypes, according to Jungian theory are “primordial images” that are “recurring images, characters, narrative design, themes, or other literary phenomenon that has been in literature from the beginning and regularly reappears” (Makaryk, 508). Generally these archetypes are inherited from ancient ancestors and passed down through generations in the form of myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies. Some common examples of archetypes include water, sun, moon, colors, circles, the Great Mother, Wise Old Man, etc.  For example, in the Odyssey, Penelope is pictured weaving a veil for her father-in-law. The act of weaving is a traditional sign of femininity and is also found in the Odyssey when Athena weaves together the lives of Odysseus’s family. This traditional female act of weaving is a curious archetype in that it actually gives females power rather than taking away power. Penelope when she is weaving is actually weaving her fate together with that of her husband. Penelope is also pictured as the Moon Goddess, another reoccurring theme in Greek literature, who weaves illusions. The Goddess of Illusions weaves and unweaves the night, allowing the moon to rise and then set, thus demanding power over the night sky. Penelope thus is parallel with the Moon Goddess, with her own act of weaving and then unweaving.
               While Penelope adheres to the traditional roles of a housewife, remaining faithful and obedient, Athena, a female goddess, defies every role that she can. When she realizes that men will not give her the needed amount of attention, she disguises herself as a man to grab their attention and insure they listen to her advice. Athena, even though she is a goddess and thus should instantly have power over all humans, still falls prey to the power of men and bows to them by becoming one of them. So, even though she does break her gender roles, she does so by disguising her true identity and thus is not the strong woman that she could be if she forced the men to reckon with her.
               Women disguising themselves to be heard have continued through the centuries with females disguising themselves to join in the battles of our forefathers, or even to fit in on the playground. From the time of the Greek drama, in the fifth century B.C., until the middle of the seventeenth century, male actors played all of the female roles, and cross dressing became a hallmark of the theater. When a strong woman such as Penelope or Antigone came on stage in those days, the fact was lost on many that these characters were in fact females because they were being played by men. So, even though women were able to find their ways into literature, even the characters could not be actualized when performed on a stage.
            Antigone on the other hand does not disguise herself or her actions, and thus does force the men of this tale to reckon with her. Antigone, the female lead, is the foil to the male lead. Both Antigone and Creon can be seen as the antagonist and the protagonist. Each one impedes the other and spurns on the actions of the other. For example, if Creon had not killed Antigone’s brother and refused his proper burial, Antigone would have never disobeyed his law and buried her brother, Polynices. Then again, if Antigone had never broken the law to bury her brother, Creon would never have had to condemn Antigone, who he swore to protect, to death. Although the title speaks that Antigone is the main focus of the story, it could be seen that the title could equally hold Creon’s name without cumbering the story line.
            Antigone is not a wise old woman like Penelope, but she does show pride, strength, and bravery when faced by Creon’s wrath. Creon, when faced with Antigone’s acts, is in disbelief that a female, a sex believed to be shy and obedient, could possibly disobey his decree. Yet, Antigone does not falter when questioned why she would do such a thing and directly disobey the king. Rather, she stands firm in her belief that her beloved brother deserved a proper burial, the same that her other brother received.
            When condemned to death by Creon, Antigone does not grovel at his feet for mercy; rather, she accepts her fate and prepares herself to join the rest of her family in the afterworld. Antigone, after Creon has sentenced her to death, takes control of her situation and turns it into a situation that has more power than initially reckoned: “She thereby initiates a cycle of pollutions in Creon’s house parallel to the pollutions that his non-burial of Polynices has brought to the   city,” (Gibbons & Segal, 10).
            Creon’s son, Haemon, is desperately in love with Antigone and does the groveling for her, begging his father to see the right and not punish a woman who was simply doing right by the laws of her heart. Haemon’s father does not hear his plea and Haemon curses him to hell for the wrong he has done as king and swears that he will never see his son again.
            When Haemon joins Antigone in her grave-like imprisonment, her strength even shocks him. Haemon begs her to come with him, to run away. Antigone, defying the damsel in distress stereotype, remains true to her cause and refuses. Antigone states that she is the bride of death and would only be such for the sake of her brother for brothers are irreplaceable, whereas husbands can be found in another when one is gone. She thus declares that Haemon’s love for her is in vain, for she would not be willing to die for Haemon if the circumstances were different. Haemon on the other hand, is very much so willing to die for her in a very Romeo and Juliet way.
              Antigone, knowing her fate–either die of starvation, or kill herself–decides to take the braver (in some people’s eyes) of the two routes and kill herself. Haemon is still in the cell, confessing his love for her, but she cannot hear him any longer. She has already passed it in her mind that she is dead, so nothing in the real world could possibly have anything to offer her, let alone a man that will not be there to take her in his arms or carry her over their threshold. Right before her love’s eyes she hangs herself to the great grief of Haemon who still had a slight hope that they would be able to be together. When he leaves her in her cell, he kills himself, in the hope that they will be able to be together in death, if not in life . . .Creon practically persuades Haemon to kill himself by showing himself after “Haemon had promised that Creon would never see him again. Creon’s imprudence, then, in word and deed was the proximate cause of Haemon’s suicide. He is too heartless, to be wise” (Benardete, 139).

             Antigone is not faithful to her husband-to-be but rather follows her heart and acts without regards to the consequences. Not once will a reader find Antigone sitting quietly weaving. It is interesting in fact that such a strong female character has managed to maintain herself throughout the years. Much can change through the test of time:

  Even the most destructive women in mythology, such as Medea, can be analyzed to show their attraction for modern women; it is well documented that in   many cultures, when matriarchal societies were replaced with patriarchal ones, the previously venerated goddesses are  turned by the new culture into witches, seductresses, or fools. studying these transformations reveals the powers of the goddess all over again, enriching the lives of men as well as women. (Approaches to Literature)

Thus, women should look more carefully at the characters of Lysistrata or the three withes of Macbeth, for perhaps at one time these women were in fact brave, strong willed women that were willing to defy the odds. Rather than being glorified for eternity, they have been obliterated by literature, and degenerated by man. Instead of looking at these female roles as insignificant because they are not fully actualized, females everywhere should look at these women and wonder: what if? What if Penelope truly did defy her gender roles and take over the rule of her household in her husband’s absence? What if Antigone truly did choose death over love? The women in fiction are truly a mystery and are enamored as such with the archetypes that bleed into the literature they are constrained to.
                In conclusion, Jung and Campbell both recognize that throughout literature there have been many reoccurring themes and symbols that become primal over time and seem natural for particular characters to uphold, particularly certain sexes. However, when examining this idea further, it can also be observed that such archetypes actually hinder the literature itself, preventing such female break-out-roles from truly achieving subjectivity. Strong willed women, such as the women mentioned above, are not fully realized female characters because of the inhibitors put on them by society.

Works Cited:
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, 3d. ed., edited by Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle

Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. New York. Oxford UP, 1992.

Benardete, Seth. Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. South
            Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999.

Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1949.
Gibbons, Reginald & Segal, Charles. The Greek Tragedy in New Translations. New
            York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Lehr, Susan. Beauty, Brains, and Brawn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.

Makaryk, Irena R., ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars,

  Terms. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993.

Growing in Time December 1, 2009

Through the course of this class, I have come to realize the importance of literature and all of the attributes literature has to offer. Even though I have always been an avid reader, I never quiet understood what the world would be like if we were restricted from the world of media. Everything around us can be viewed as some form of media, and when you turn your back to this fact, essentially you are turning your back on the world. When I wrote my first blog for this course, I wrote about the surreal qualitities of literature and the world literature offers to those that simply want to escape. Sometimes, however, one can not simply escape into literature but rather must find oneself in literature. Even in the ageless tales of Antigone and Shakespeare and Hedda Gabbler, people can still respond to the plights these characters must battle through. connecting with charcters is the ultimate goal of readers because it allows readers to realize that life, as fantastic as it can be portrayed, is not all that glorious in reality, and that even the most horrific cases can in fact be timeless (Romeo and Juliet for example). I have learned since my first blog that literature and media rule this world, and accepting its rule makes for a much easier understanding of the workings around us.

Final Draft Essay December 1, 2009

Callie Kitchen
Professor DeVries
English 3150
17 November 2009

Female Foils:
An Evaluation of the Roles of Female in Literature

              How do females have power over their men dominators? For thousands of years, females have been the lesser gender, moving from a matriarchal society, to a predominately patriarchic society-which still dominates even today. In Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, females were simply foils to the males who dominated society and their lives. Females virtually had no power, and even goddesses would disguise their identities to man to have more authority and sway over the human race. In this essay, I will explore the impact females had on their male counterparts and on the texts themselves, using the theories of C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell. I plan to work with both the epics of Antigone and the Odyssey, using the Archetypal/Myth Criticism theory to explore the female role in ancient mythological literature.
            Throughout history women have been forgotten by literature and seen as less than worthy to be the center of attention, especially in a man’s world. Strong women have been cast into the shadows as nothing more than dogs compared to their loud-talking husbands. When little girls grow up, a void is found in their lives when they search for female role models in the literature world. Yet, when reading the Odyssey and Antigone, two great Greek works of literature, strong women are found who provide a foil to their male counterparts, showing the less than chivalrous side of males.
           In the Odyssey, Odysseus leaves his wife, Penelope and small child, Telemakhos, behind while he triumphs the world with his manly acts of death. He is gone for many years, in which he falls prey to many women, including the goddess, Calypso. Although he is dishonest to his wife, Penelope remains faithful to him, never knowing if he is still alive. Portrayed as the typical rich housewife of the ages, she sits in her home, weaving and weaving the days away. Many suitors descend on the hall to try to plead her hand in marriage, for his own purposes of course, and yet she does not sway. Penelope promises all of the suitors that as soon as she is done making a veil for her father-in-law’s death, she will marry one of them. Everyday the suitors see her weaving this veil, but what they don’t see is truly one of the bravest acts of love in literature. While everyone else is deep in sleep, Penelope waits until it is safe and then begins to unravel the veil to begin anew in the morning. The suitors do not see her folly and are not alarmed until one of her handmaids tells of her trickery. The men are outraged, and yet, she still does not fall to the evils of the men. She remains strong, hoping that her husband will come home soon, and take over his place as the rightful owner of the land and of his wife.
             While she remains true and uses her cunning mind to trick the suitors to save her self for her husband, Odysseus does not use his cunning mind against the women he meets and thus falls into their beds. From each woman he meets, he learns a new lesson about life. The final lesson that he learns is that there is no greater thing in life than the love that he shares with his wife: the only woman that he wants, but can’t have. Thus, she is her husband’s foil showing all of his flaws and countering those flaws with her own.
            Another way to look at the character of Penelope, within the same idea, is that she is Odysseus’s unconscious or his anima. Applying Jung‘s theory here, men are only able to become fully actualized when they are joined by their counterparts who bring out the female aspects of his brain, or the anima. Females on the other hand are completed when the male side of the brain is realized, or the animus. Penelope, through her faithfulness shows Odysseus that true happiness is only found when your other half can share a life with you.
            In Antigone, the female lead is the foil to the male lead. Both Antigone and Creon can be seen as the antagonist and the protagonist. Each one impedes the other and spurns on the actions of the other. For example, if Creon had not killed Antigone’s brother and refused his proper burial, Antigone would have never disobeyed his law and burried her brother, Polynices. Then again, if Antigone had never broken the law to bury her brother, Creon would never have had to condemn Antigone, who he swore to protect, to death. Although the title speaks that Antigone is the main focus of the story, it could be seen that the title could equally hold Creon’s name without cumbering the story line.
Antigone, who is not a wise old woman like Penelope, but she does show pride, strength, and bravery when faced by Creon’s wrath. Creon, when faced with Antigone’s acts, is in disbelief that a female, a sex believed to be shy and obedient, could possibly disobey his decree. Yet, Antigone does not falter when questioned why she would do such a thing and directly disobey the king. Rather, she stands firm in her belief that her beloved brother deserved a proper burial, the same that her other brother received.
When condemned to death by Creon, Antigone does not grovel at his feet for mercy, rather, she accepts her fate and prepares herself to join the rest of her family in the afterworld.Antigone, after Creon has sentenced her to death, takes control of her
situation and turns it into a situation that has more power than initially reckoned:
                                                                 “She thereby initiates a cycle of pollutions in Creon’s house parallel to
                                                                   the pollutions that his non-burial of Polynices has brought to the city,” (Gibbons
                                                                   & Segal, 10).
Creon’s son, Haemon, is desperately in love with Antigone and does the grovelling for her, begging his father to see the right and not punish a woman who was simply doing right by the laws of her heart. Haemon’s father does not hear his plea and Haemon curses him to hell for the wrong he has done as king and swears that he will never see his son again.
When Haemon joins Antigone in her grave-like imprisonment, her strength even shocks him. Haemon begs her to come with him, to run away. Antigone, defying the damsel in distress stereotype, remains true to her cause and refuses. Antigone states that she is the bride of death and would only be such for the sake of her brother for brothers are irreplaceable, whereas husbands can be found in another when one is gone. She thus declares that Haemon’s love for her is in vain, for she would not be willing to die for Haemon if the circumstances were different. Haemon on the other hand, is very much so willing to die for her in a very Romeo and Juliet way.
              Antigone, knowing her fate–either die of starvation, or kill herself–decides to take the braver (in some people’s eyes) of the two routes and kill herself. Haemon is still in the cell, confessing his love for her, but she cannot hear him any longer. She has already passed it in her mind that she is dead, so nothing in the real world could possibly have anything to offer her, let alone a man that will not be there to take her in his arms or carry her over their threshold. Right before her love’s eyes she hangs herself to the great grief of Haemon who still had a slight hope that they would be able to be together. When he leaves her in her cell, he kills himself, in the hope that they will be able to be together in death, if not in life. . .Creon practically persuades Haemon to kill himself by showing himself after “Haemon had promised that Creon would never see him again. Creon’s imprudence, then, in word and deed was the proximate cause of Haemon’s suicide. He is too heartless, to be wise” (Benardete, 139).
             In the Odyssey several females portray common archetypes throughout the literary spectrum. For example, in the Odyssey, Penelope is pictured weaving a veil for her father in law. The act of weaving is a traditional sign of femininity and is also found in the Odyssey when Athena weaves together the lives of Odysseus’s family. This traditional female act of weaving is a curious archetype in that it actually gives females power rather than taking away power. Penelope when she is weaving is actually weaving her fate together with that of her husband. Penelope is also pictured as the Moon Goddess, another reoccurring theme in Greek literature, who weaves illusions. The Goddess of Illusions weaves and unweaves the night, allowing the moon to rise and then set, thus demanding power over the night sky. Penelope thus is parallel with the Moon Goddess, with her own act of weaving and then unweaving.
               While Penelope adheres to the traditional roles of a housewife, remaining faithful and obedient, Athena, a female goddess, defies every role that she can. When she realizes that men will not give her the needed amount of attention, she disguises herself as a man to grab their attention and insure they listen to her advice. Athena, even though she is a goddess and thus should instantly have power over all humans, still falls prey to the power of men and bows to them by becoming one of them. So, even though she does break her gender roles, she does so by disguising her true identity and thus is not the strong woman that she could be if she forced the men to reckon with her.
               Women disguising themselves to be heard has continued through the centuries with females disguising themselves to join in the battles of our forefathers, or even to fit in on the playground. From the time of the Greek drama, in the fifth century B.C., until the middle of the seventeenth century, male actors played all of the female roles, and cross dressing became a hallmark of the theater. When a strong woman such as Penelope or Antigone came on stage in those days, the fact was lost on many that these characters were in fact females because they were being played by men. So, even though women were able to find their ways into literature, even the characters could not be actualized when performed on a stage.
Antigone on the other hand does not disguise herself or her actions, and thus does force the men of this tale to reckon with her. Antigone is not faithful to her husband-to-be but rather follows her heart and acts without regards to the consequences. Not once will a reader find Antigone sitting quietly weaving. It is interesting in fact that such a strong female character has managed to maintain herself throughout the years. Much can change through the test of time:
                                                                          Even the most destructive women in mythology, such as Medea, can be analyzed to show their

                                                                          attraction for modern women; it is well- documented that in many cultures, when matriarchal

                                                                          societies were replaced with patriarchal ones, the previously veneerated goddesses are  turned

                                                                          by the new culture into witches, seductresses, or fools. studying these transformations reveals

                                                                          the powers of the goddess all over again, enriching the lives of men as

                                                                           well as women. (Approaches to Literature)
Thus, women should look more carefully at the characters of Lysistrata or the three withes of Macbeth, for perhaps at one time these women were in fact brave, strong willed women that were willing to defy the odds. Rather than being glorified for eternity, they have been obliterated by literature, and degenerated by man. Instead of looking at these female roles as insignificant because they are not fully actualized, females everywhere should look at these women and wonder: what if? What if Penelope truly did defy her gender roles and take over the rule of her household in her husband’s absence? What if Antigone truly did choose death over love? The women in fiction are truly a mystery and are enamored as such with the archetypes that bleed into the literature they are constrained to.
                In conclusion, Jung and Campbell both recognize that throughout literature there have been many reoccurring themes and symbols that become primal over time and seem natural for particular characters to uphold, particularly certain sexes. However, when examining this idea further, it can also be observed that such archetypes actually hinder the literature itself, preventing such female break-out-roles from truly achieving subjectivity. Strong willed women, such as the women mentioned above, are not fully realized female characters because of the inhibitors put on them by society.

Works Cited:
Benardete, Seth. Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. South
Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999.
Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, NY: Pantheon Boos, 1949.
Gibbons, Reginald & Segal, Charles. The Greek Tragedy in New Translations. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, 3d. ed., edited by Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. New York. Oxford UP, 1992,

Rough Draft November 17, 2009

Callie Kitchen
Professor DeVries
English 3150
17 November 2009
Female Foils:
An Evaluation of the Roles of Female in Literature
How do females have power over their men dominators? For thousands of years, females have been the lesser gender, moving from a matriarchal society, to a predominately patriarchic society-which still dominates even today. In Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, females were simply foils to the males who dominated society and their lives. Females virtually had no power, and even goddesses would disguise their identities to man to have more authority and sway over the human race. In this essay, I will explore the impact females had on their male counterparts and on the texts themselves, using the theories of C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell. I plan to work with both the epics of Antigone and the Odyssey, using the Archetypal/Myth Criticism theory to explore the female role in ancient mythological literature.
Throughout history women have been forgotten by literature and seen as less than worthy to be the center of attention, especially in a man’s world. Strong women have been cast into the shadows as nothing more than dogs compared to their loud-talking husbands. When little girls grow up, a void is found in their lives when they search for female role models in the literature world. Yet, when reading the Odyssey and Antigone, two great Greek works of literature, strong women are found who provide a foil to their male counterparts, showing the less than chivalrous side of males.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus leaves his wife, Penelope and small child, Telemakhos, behind while he triumphs the world with his manly acts of death. He is gone for many years, in which he falls prey to many women, including the goddess, Calypso. Although he is dishonest to his wife, Penelope remains faithful to him, never knowing if he is still alive. Portrayed as the typical rich housewife of the ages, she sits in her home, weaving and weaving the days away. Many suitors descend on the hall to try to plead her hand in marriage, for his own purposes of course, and yet she does not sway. Penelope promises all of the suitors that as soon as she is done making a veil for her father-in-law’s death, she will marry one of them. Everyday the suitors see her weaving this veil, but what they don’t see is truly one of the bravest acts of love in literature. While everyone else is deep in sleep, Penelope waits until it is safe and then begins to unravel the veil to begin anew in the morning. The suitors do not see her folly and are not alarmed until one of her handmaids tells of her trickery. The men are outraged, and yet, she still does not fall to the evils of the men. She remains strong, hoping that her husband will come home soon, and take over his place as the rightful owner of the land and of his wife.
While she remains true and uses her cunning mind to trick the suitors to save her self for her husband, Odysseus does not use his cunning mind against the women he meets and thus falls into their beds. From each woman he meets, he learns a new lesson about life. The final lesson that he learns is that there is no greater thing in life than the love that he shares with his wife: the only woman that he wants, but can’t have. Thus, she is her husband’s foil showing all of his flaws and countering those flaws with her own.
Another way to look at the character of Penelope, within the same idea, is that she is Odysseus’s unconscious or his anima. Applying Jung‘s theory here, men are only able to become fully actualized when they are joined by their counterparts who bring out the female aspects of his brain, or the anima. Females on the other hand are completed when the male side of the brain is realized, or the animus. Penelope, through her faithfulness shows Odysseus that true happiness is only found when your other half can share a life with you.
In Antigone, the female lead is the foil to the male lead. Both Antigone and Creon can be seen as the antagonist and the protagonist. Each one impedes the other and spurns on the actions of the other. For example, if Creon had not killed Antigone’s brother and refused his proper burial, Antigone would have never disobeyed his law and burried her brother, Polynices. Then again, if Antigone had never broken the law to bury her brother, Creon would never have had to condemn Antigone, who he swore to protect, to death. Although the title speaks that Antigone is the main focus of the story, it could be seen that the title could equally hold Creon’s name without cumbering the story line.
Antigone, who is not a wise old woman like Penelope, but she does show pride, strength, and bravery when faced by Creon’s wrath. Creon, when faced with Antigone’s acts, is in disbelief that a female, a sex believed to be shy and obedient, could possibly disobey his decree. Yet, Antigone does not falter when questioned why she would do such a thing and directly disobey the king. Rather, she stands firm in her belief that her beloved brother deserved a proper burial, the same that her other brother received.
When condemned to death by Creon, Antigone does not grovel at his feet for mercy, rather, she accepts her fate and prepares herself to join the rest of her family in the afterworld.Antigone, after Creon has sentenced her to death, takes control of her
situation and turns it into a situation that has more power than initially
reckoned: “She thereby initiates a cycle of pollutions in Creon’s house parallel to
the pollutions that his non-burial of Polynices has brought to the city,” (Gibbons
& Segal, 10). Creon’s son, Haemon, is desperately in love with Antigone and does the grovelling for her, begging his father to see the right and not punish a woman who was simply doing right by the laws of her heart. Haemon’s father does not hear his plea and Haemon curses him to hell for the wrong he has done as king and swears that he will never see his son again.
When Haemon joins Antigone in her grave-like imprisonment, her strength even shocks him. Haemon begs her to come with him, to run away. Antigone, defying the damsel in distress stereotype, remains true to her cause and refuses. Antigone states that she is the bride of death and would only be such for the sake of her brother for brothers are irreplaceable, whereas husbands can be found in another when one is gone. She thus declares that Haemon’s love for her is in vain, for she would not be willing to die for Haemon if the circumstances were different. Haemon on the other hand, is very much so willing to die for her in a very Romeo and Juliet way.
Antigone, knowing her fate–either die of starvation, or kill herself–decides to take the braver (in some people’s eyes) of the two routes and kill herself. Haemon is still in the cell, confessing his love for her, but she cannot hear him any longer. She has already passed it in her mind that she is dead, so nothing in the real world could possibly have anything to offer her, let alone a man that will not be there to take her in his arms or carry her over their threshold. Right before her love’s eyes she hangs herself to the great grief of Haemon who still had a slight hope that they would be able to be together.
When he leaves her in her cell, he kills himself, in the hope that they will be able to be together in death, if not in life. . Creon practically persuades Haemon to kill himself by showing himself after “Haemon had promised that Creon would never see him again. Creon’s imprudence, then, in word and deed was the proximate cause of Haemon’s suicide. He is too heartless, to be wise” (Benardete, 139).
In the Odyssey several females portray common archetypes throughout the literary spectrum. For example, in the Odyssey, Penelope is pictured weaving a veil for her father in law. The act of weaving is a traditional sign of femininity and is also found in the Odyssey when Athena weaves together the lives of Odysseus’s family. This traditional female act of weaving is a curious archetype in that it actually gives females power rather than taking away power. Penelope when she is weaving is actually weaving her fate together with that of her husband. Penelope is also pictured as the Moon Goddess, another reoccurring theme in Greek literature, who weaves illusions. The Goddess of Illusions weaves and unweaves the night, allowing the moon to rise and then set, thus demanding power over the night sky. Penelope thus is parallel with the Moon Goddess, with her own act of weaving and then unweaving.
While Penelope adheres to the traditional roles of a housewife, remaining faithful and obedient, Athena, a female goddess, defies every role that she can. When she realizes that men will not give her the needed amount of attention, she disguises herself as a man to grab their attention and insure they listen to her advice. Athena, even though she is a goddess and thus should instantly have power over all humans, still falls prey to the power of men and bows to them by becoming one of them. So, even though she does break her gender roles, she does so by disguising her true identity and thus is not the strong woman that she could be if she forced the men to reckon with her.
Women disguising themselves to be heard has continued through the centuries with females disguising themselves to join in the battles of our forefathers, or even to fit in on the playground. From the time of the Greek drama, in the fifth century B.C., until the middle of the seventeenth century, male actors played all of the female roles, and cross dressing became a hallmark of the theater. When a strong woman such as Penelope or Antigone came on stage in those days, the fact was lost on many that these characters were in fact females because they were being played by men. So, even though women were able to find their ways into literature, even the characters could not be actualized when performed on a stage.
Antigone on the other hand does not disguise herself or her actions, and thus does force the men of this tale to reckon with her. Antigone is not faithful to her husband-to-be but rather follows her heart and acts without regards to the consequences. Not once will a reader find Antigone sitting quietly weaving. It is interesting in fact that such a strong female character has managed to maintain herself throughout the years. Much can change through the test of time:
Even the most destructive women in mythology, such as Medea, can be analyzed to show their attraction for modern women; it is well-documented that in many cultures, when matriarchal societies were replaced with patriarchal ones, the previously veneerated goddesses are turned by the new culture into witches, seductresses, or fools. studying these transformations reveals the powers of the goddess all over again, enriching the lives of men as well as women. (Approaches to Literature)
Thus, women should look more carefully at the characters of Lysistrata or the three withes of Macbeth, for perhaps at one time these women were in fact brave, strong willed women that were willing to defy the odds. Rather than being glorified for eternity, they have been obliterated by literature, and degenerated by man. Instead of looking at these female roles as insignificant because they are not fully actualized, females everywhere should look at these women and wonder: what if? What if Penelope truly did defy her gender roles and take over the rule of her household in her husband’s absence? What if Antigone truly did choose death over love? The women in fiction are truly a mystery and are enamored as such with the archetypes that bleed into the literature they are constrained to.
In conclusion, Jung and Campbell both recognize that throughout literature there have been many reoccurring themes and symbols that become primal over time and seem natural for particular characters to uphold, particularly certain sexes. However, when examining this idea further, it can also be observed that such archetypes actually hinder the literature itself, preventing such female break-out-roles from truly achieving subjectivity. Strong willed women, such as the women mentioned above, are not fully realized female characters because of the inhibitors put on them by society.

Works Cited:
Benardete, Seth. Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. South
Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999.
Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, NY: Pantheon Boos, 1949.
Gibbons, Reginald & Segal, Charles. The Greek Tragedy in New Translations. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, 3d. ed., edited by Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. New York. Oxford UP, 1992,

Silent Film November 11, 2009

Sadly I didn’t know that when you click the publish button on windows movie maker, it prevents you from adding any music to your movie, so I have a silent movie, nonintentionally.

Essay Media Remix November 11, 2009

Theory Essay Proposal November 9, 2009

How do females have power over their men dominators? For thousands of years, females have been the lesser gender, moving from a matriarchal society, to a predominately patriarchic society-which still dominates even today. In Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, females were simply foils to the males who dominated society and their lives. Females virtually had no power, and even goddesses would disguise their identities to man to have more authority and sway over the human race. In this essay, I will explore the impact females had on their male counterparts and on the texts themselves, using the theories of C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell.  I plan to work with both the epics of Antigone and the Odyssey, using the Archetypal/Myth Criticism theory to explore the female role in ancient mythological literature.

Remixing October 22, 2009

To remix my Equivocation essay, I could create a montage of photographs, taken from the play and add music to them to show the process the character Shagspeare goes through. Another idea would be to create a painting of all of the emotions the characters feel throughout the play. Or, my last idea is to create a short music video, a parody of the play, in which Shagspeare becomes more of a player (what actors were called back in the day) than a director.

Tools I Use October 22, 2009

When I am researching a topic, I use many different methods to aid my development. For example, I use internet resources such as search engines and online databases like CQ Reasearcher and Lexis Nexis. I also use textbooks from other courses, as well as the course itself to supplement my writing. Encyclopedias are always a good resource as well.

In terms of actually writing my paper, I generally handwrite it first, so I can manually correct myself before I type it on a computer using a word document program such as Microsoft Word.

Media Essay-Revised October 10, 2009

Callie Kitchen

Professor Devries

English 3150

10 October 2009

Equivocation:

An Analysis of the Art of Equivocating

            Equivocation: The use of words or expressions that are susceptible of a double signification, with a view to mislead; esp. the expression of a virtual falsehood in the form of a proposition which (in order to satisfy the speaker’s conscience) is verbally true. (Oxford English Dictionary). This is the term that playwright Bill Cain adapted as the name of his play revolving around England’s Gunpowder Plot and Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare’s life is a mystery to us because there is no written record of his life, except for the works he left behind: his plays. Cain wondered what Shakespeare would have thought about the events that occurred during his lifetime, and the significant figures that ruled. To narrow this plethora of opportunities for his research down to a more manageable amount, Cain focuses on the Gunpowder Plot, and the possible relationship Shakespeare would have had with this historical event.

            In all forms of media, the personal and the political are woven together, and the sixteenth century was no exception. Shakespeare, however, tried to erase his own point of view from all of his works—the opposite of most writers who use their writing as a tool to proclaim their strongest convictions—and thus, leaves us guessing who the man behind the amazing plays still reenacted five-hundred years later truly was. Cain thus interjects what perhaps Shakespeare would have thought about the Gunpowder Plot if he were to write a play about such a current event—which was not common practice for a playwright—generally only historical plays were approved of. In Cain’s play, King James I commissions Shakespeare (shown as Shagspeare in the play) to write about the King’s almost demise. In this event, a group of radical Catholics plotted to blow up the Protestant King, his family, and the court. The plot was uncovered at the last moment, and the supposed plotters imprisoned. The ‘almost’ assassination horrified the nation. Robert Cecil, the King’s ruthless chief advisor gives Shag the King’s rudimentary script and tells him to rework it, adding a little dialogue and witches. King James I was obsessed with witches.

             As Shag begins to write the King’s play, he struggles to just write the play the King wants from him. Delving deeper and deeper, he begins to realize how difficult and complex his task truly is-for himself, as an artist, a member of a theater company, and even more generally as a moral citizen. In real life, Shakespeare is known for his abnormal family habits. At nineteen years old, he impregnated Anne Hathaway, whom he had had a “Spring Fling” with and then felt obligated in marrying. He was nineteen and Anne was twenty-eight—a very unusual pairing, and one that Shakespeare felt trapped in. Their daughter Suzanne was born and then was followed by twins: Judith and Hamnet. Shakespeare instantly connected with his son, and never fully did so with his daughters. Hamnet, unfortunately for the rest of the family, died when he was only eleven years old. Shakespeare did not return to his family after Hamnet’s death, and spent most of his years away writing the plays that are still read today.

            Judith, the unwanted twin that Shakespeare supposedly wished had died rather than his son has a unique role in Cain’s play Equivocation. Judith is finally allowed a part in her father’s life, but a very small one: the actors’ laundry woman. In the play, she follows the players around, picking up their discarded clothing and scripts. One such script she saves from the trash happens to be what later on becomes the play Macbeth. Throughout the play she has her moments of self declaration. These are the only glimpses allowed to the audience, showing what the life of the unwanted is like. In the opening scene of the play, Judith asks her father to ask how she is. He replies, “You’re always the same.” Of course, she simply wanted to know that he cared enough to be asked, but instead of inquiring how his daughter might be doing in life, he diverts. Feeling guilty, he asks how she is and she replies “The same.” Shagspeare lost the moment of opportunity, a portal to a relationship that actually could pass as a father/daughter relationship.

            Another interesting aspect presented by Cain is the progression of Shakespeare’s work. In Equivocation, Shagspeare is shown in many scenes walking around with a pad of paper, scribbling notes as things come to him. He also plays off of his actors ideas, writing whole sentences right from their mouths onto the paper. Here, Cain is playing off of one of the many Shakespeare Conspiracies: Shakespeare never truly wrote any of his plays himself. Many have leveled that perhaps Christopher Marlowe, an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethean Era was the true artist behind the highly regarded Shakespearean plays. In another scene, Cain emphasizes this idea again when Shagspeare’s daughter Judith begins to edit her father’s work, crossing out sections here and adding sections there. The main draft that she reworks—the one that later becomes Macbeth—was apparently full of soliloquies before she got a hold of it. During the scene, the audience sees her crossing out whole sections, declaring that soliloquies are just another way for the male lead to make the audience feel sorry for him, case and point Hamlet. Furthering her point, Judith states that she wouldn’t mind soliloquies if they were given to interesting characters once in a while, like the daughters for example. She hates soliloquies, but ironically enough, Cain allows her role to have many soliloquies, a fact that Judith actually points out to the audience in one of her soliloquies.

            Judith is a prime example of mixing politics with the personal. Shagspeare is shown in one scene, sitting, writing as Judith cleans-up around him. She asks the question: “How many this time?” Shagspeare at first does not realize what she is referring to. But, when she begins to list random numbers, he realizes that she is numbering the deaths in his plays. Although the number of dead in his plays is insignificant and simply a marketing technique to Shagspeare, they are important to Judith. Each person her father kills is one more that should have died rather than her beloved brother. Of course, Shagspeare ignores his daughter and continues writing the King’s script, attempting to find something in the King’s writing that will render a successful play, one he will not be hanged for.

             When Shag’s acting company begins to perform his reworked script, they realize it is stiff and problematic. One of his actors even suggests that only a playwright as talented as Christopher Marlowe could write such a complex play and get away with it. More and more problems appear as the acting goes on, and they all begin to wonder if perhaps they’re not the only ones acting. Shagspeare begins to wonder if perhaps the Gunpowder Plot, as the nation knows it, was ever an actual event, or if perhaps it was an event created by the mind of Cecil to incarcerate men who he felt deserved no less. To find the truth, Shag goes to one of the accused priests, Father Henry Garnet, a Jesuit priest schooled in the art of equivocation. Garnet handles Shag’s somewhat aggressive and tricky questions skillfully, never truly allowing the truth to be glimpsed. The art of equivocation then is much the same as today. When a girlfriend asks if her pants make her look fat, what do you say? Do you answer yes and risk offending her? By answering yes, when in fact she does look plumper, you are lying. However, by equivocating, her question would actually be, “Do these pants make me confident?” So, by answering yes, you would not be lying because you are answering honestly to the question she is really asking, and she thinks the pants do not make her look fat. In the 16^th century, Parliament passed laws prohibiting Catholic priests to practice their priestly duties: marriage rights, baptisms, funeral rights, and mass.  Thus, when a priest was asked in court whether or not he was a priest, answering yes would surely mean death. However, answering no would be a lie. Father Henry Garnet, the same portrayed in Cain’s play, wrote A Treatise of Equivocation, as an instructional manual to his fellow priests. Garnet states in the play to not “answer what they’re asking. If a dishonest man has formed the question, there will be no honest answer. Answer the question beneath the question,” (Cain, Equivocation, 53).

            Shagspeare, realizing that there is no way out of writing his play for the King, goes to Garnet in hopes that Garnet will teach him how to equivocate. After a few lessons, Shag believes that he has mastered the concept of equivocation and goes back to reworking his play, which is set to open in the Globe for his majesty. The play Macbeth is thus born, in Shagspeare’s attempt to equivocate. There is war, an assassination plot on the king (which in this case is successful), the ascension of a guilty man (possibly likened to Cecil), and of course, witches.

            Equivocation is not only a fascinating play, but also a fascinating concept in a day and age where the line between politics and the personal are blurred day to day. In reality, we can not trust anything around us. Yet, we have the faith that what is in front of us is truly there, and what people have believed for hundreds of years is true. Yet, as Cain portrays in his play, the art of equivocating is no small thing and can inundate every matter of the world. It is a useful technique at times, and yet a dangerous weapon at others. The life of Shakespeare will always be a mystery to us, and yet Cain allows us a glimpse of the man he might have been: Shagspeare, a man trying to unwind his life from the complications of his path and discovering truth and love along the way. Perhaps Cain himself was equivocating in showing us this version of Shakespeare, but in the end Cain’s play is a success, portraying a man of genius as a man of the heart, an everyday man with everyday problems.