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ALLUSIONS PYGMALION and GALATEA and the TOWER of BABEL Jameelah Jones Mia Augustine the TOWER of BABEL

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ALLUSIONS PYGMALION and GALATEA and the TOWER of BABEL Jameelah Jones Mia Augustine the TOWER of BABEL ALLUSIONS PYGMALION AND GALATEA AND THE TOWER OF BABEL Jameelah Jones Mia Augustine THE TOWER OF BABEL Characters God ( protective, territorial) Townspeople (greedy, gullible) Nimrod ( manipulative, selfish) SUMMARY The story of the tower of Babel begins with the people of Shinar and their quest to build a tower to reach the heavens. Since they all speak one language, it is easy to communicate their ideas. They say, “Let us make a name for ourselves, lest us be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4) God was outraged when he heard of this, saying that “nothing that they propose to do will ever be impossible for them (Genesis11:6). God confuses the people by giving them all separate languages. The people then spread throughout the earth. The word Babel Itself means “Gate of God.” The word is now used to mean, “to utter incoherent sounds” This story is also used to explain why people in other countries speak different languages N THE AND Each day the shadow swings I L round from west to east till night overtakes it, OF SHINAR hiding half the slow circle. Each year BY DENISE the tower grows taller, spiralling out of its monstrous root-circumference, ramps and 5 LEVERTOV colonnades mounting tier by lessening tier the way a searching •Written in bird of prey wheels and mounts the sky, driven by hungers unsated by blood and bones. 1923 And the shadow lengthens, our homes nearby are dark half the day, and the bricklayers, stonecutters, 10 carpenters bivouac high in the scaffolded arcades, further and further above the ground, •Politically weary from longer and longer comings and goings. At times active even as a worksong twirls down the autumn leaf of a phrase, but mostly a child we catch only the harsher sounds of their labor itself, and 15 that seems only an echo now of the bustle and clamor there was long ago when the fields were cleared, the hole was dug, the •Created foundations laid with boasting and fanfares, the work begun. controversy by The tower, great circular honeycomb, rises and rises and still alluding to the the heavens 20arch above and evade it, while the great shadow engulfs Bible when more and more of the land, our lives dark with the fear a day will blaze, or a full-moon describing the night defining with icy brilliance the dense shade, when all the flaws in immense weight of this wood and brick and stone and metal 25 humanity. and massive weight of dream and weight of will will collapse, crumble, thunder and fall, fall upon us, the dwellers in shadow. THEMES AND SYMBOLS Resistance Tower Rebellion Languages Defiance Heaven Wanting to be like Earth God Clouds Setting of Boundaries God Obsession Humans T HE French illustrator T OWER and Etcher Illustrated OF a Bible in B Folio ABAEL Format Illustrated BY such works G as USTAV Paradise Lost,and Rime of G the ORE Ancient Mariner PYGMALION AND GALETEA Greek Mythology CHARACTERS Pygmalion (arrogant, selfish) Galatea (empty, lonely) Aphrodite (sympathetic, beautiful) SUMMARY Pygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to abhor the sex, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor, and had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful that no living woman came anywhere near it. It was indeed the perfect semblance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only prevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it concealed itself and its product looked like the workmanship of nature. Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love with the counterfeit creation. He named her Galatea and showered her with gifts and material possessions. Aphrodite had a party at Pygmalion’s village, and He, still stricken with grief, prayed to Aphrodite to send him a wife, “like his ivory goddess”. Feeling his pain, Aphrodite transformed Galatea into a human! He instantly proposed to Galatea, and Aphrodite presided over their nuptials. SYMBOLS AND THEMES Perfection Statue Obsession Gods Façades Gifts Coveting Women Lust Pygmalion Galatea PAINTED BY G Salvador Dali (1907-1989) ALATEA Painted in 1952 AND Salvador Dali painted extreme surrealist THE works. (think of him SPHERES as a Spanish Picasso) CLARIBEL ALEGRÍA, “GALATEA BEFORE THE MIRROR” my perfection isn’t mine you invented it I am only the mirror in which you preen yourself and for that very reason I despise you. WRITING PROMPT Both “The Tower of Babel” and Pygmalion and Galatea are centers around their characters believing that they are entitled to everything they desire. At what point does believing you are deserving of something cross over into arrogance? REFERENCES Classical and Biblical Allusions by: Martin H.Manser, David H. Pickering, Associate Editor. The Bible, Genesis Chapter 11 The Bible as in Literature, Scottforesman http://www.laputanlogic.com http://www.mythicalpassages.org.
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