Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2016 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2016 Performing Femininity: Gender in Ancient Greek Myth Katherine Anne Gabriel Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016 Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons, and the Gender and Sexuality Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Gabriel, Katherine Anne, "Performing Femininity: Gender in Ancient Greek Myth" (2016). Senior Projects Spring 2016. 259. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016/259 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Performing Femininity: Gender in Ancient Greek Myth Senior Project submitted to The Division of Language and Literature Of Bard College By Katherine Gabriel Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2016 Acknowledgements Professor Carolyn Dewald, thank you for your time and invaluable guidance over the past year. www To my friends and roommates, thank you for always lending endless amounts of advice and support. www Lastly, to my wonderful family, your love, support, and encouragement made this entire process possible. Thank you for being my inspiration. www Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: THE CONVENTIONAL ROLE OF WOMEN IN ANCIENT GREECE ............... 5 CHAPTER 2: CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST THEORY ................................................................ 18 Judith Butler: Performative Gender .................................................................................................................... 19 Monique Wittig / Luce Irigaray: Language .................................................................................................... 21 Sherry Ortner: Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture ......................................................................... 23 Ute Frevert: Emotions in History – Lost and Found ..................................................................................... 28 Edwin Schur: Labeling Women Deviant ........................................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 3: PENELOPE AS THE IDEAL WIFE AND WOMAN ............................................... 39 CHAPTER 4: AESCHYLUS, THE ORESTEIA .................................................................................... 53 4.1) THE AGAMEMNON: CLYTEMNESTRA’S PERFORMANCE ................................................................................... 54 4.2) THE EUMENIDES: REESTABLISHING MALE ORDER ......................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER 5: EURIPIDEAN TRAGEDY .............................................................................................. 88 5.1) THE MEDEA: DESTROYING THE OIKOS .............................................................................................................. 89 5.2) THE BACCHAE: THE COLLAPSE OF THE POLIS ................................................................................................ 105 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 119 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 127 1 Introduction Investigating Greek Femininity Through Ancient Voices and Social Theory My investigation of ancient Greek gender and femininity draws on both ancient voices and contemporary social theorists. These works come together to create a lens that can then be applied to my feminist interpretations of the Greek narratives. This analysis is valuable not only in that it produces a theory of its own on femininity, deviance, and ancient gender roles but also as it addresses the questions of gender that guide this investigation. These questions, more specifically, deal with the performance of femininity and social constructions of deviance: Are subversive performances of gender present within the realm of ancient Greek narrative? Is resistance to male power possible? If so, what are the consequences for challenging hegemonic masculinity1 and androcentric social order? Within the context of ancient Greek myth and drama, is the dissolution of gender possible? In the ostensibly misogynistic and oppressive ancient Greek society, what opens up the opportunity for a collapse of male power? Could mythological circumstances allow for a social breakdown such as this? This investigation looks to grapple with these questions and potentially grasp an answer within the ancient voices of Homer and the Greek tragedians, Aeschylus and Euripides. 1 ‘‘Hegemonic masculinity’ is a phrase I will use several times throughout this study. R. W. Connell first uses this term in 1987 in the segment titled, "Gender and Power - Society, the Person and Sexual Politics.” Connell coins this phrase and describes it as such: femininity and masculinity center “on a single structural fact, the global dominance of men over women” (Connell, 1987. 183). Because of this, “‘Hegemonic masculinity’ is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women. Connell further defines the term: “In the concept of hegemonic masculinity, ‘hegemony’ means … a social ascendency achieved in a play of social forces that extends beyond contests of brute power into the organization of private life and cultural processes” (Connell, 1987. 184). In turn, Connell’s theory describes ideologies, cultural practices, and aspects of daily life that not only come about through unconscious complicity but also cumulate in a widespread hierarchical system of social order that perpetuates the subordination of individuals and groups based on stratifications in race, class, and gender. 2 This study is broken into five chapters. Chapters one and two look to outline the frameworks that I will later use to analyze and discuss the ancient Greek works. Chapter one will introduce the collective work of Elaine Fantham, Helene Foley, Natalie Kampen, Sarah Pomeroy, and H. A. Shapiro, Women in the Classical World. This remarkable text articulates the various roles and portrayals of women coming out of the ancient Greek world. This particular text plays two critical roles within the whole of my investigation. It not only communicates valuable background information on the history of Greek women but it also serves as a foundational grounding point to guide my survey of femininity and address my focal gender questions. In chapter two, I will turn to contemporary feminist theory in order to engage in a discussion of gender, femininity, and deviance from the perspective of social theorists. I outline each theorist’s work in such a way that explains his or her social framework while also positing how it will be relevant within the later discussion of Greek narrative. Judith Butler’s work, Gender Trouble, and her theory on performative gender are central to my investigation. Butler’s work guides my approach by helping to outline aspects of society that impact gender performances and perpetuate systems of oppression. I move from Butler’s theory to outline several other theorists including: Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, Sherry Ortner, Ute Frevert, and Edwin Schur. I have pulled together this particular group of theorists as each framework grapples with a respective aspect of society. The social theories piece together to create a perspective that considers language, ‘nature / culture’, emotion and behavior, and deviance. This theoretical perspective is vital to my later exploration of the ancient Greek dramas. Likewise, this collective perspective grapples with the overarching concept of femininity and directly engages with questions of deviance and forms of gender resistance. 3 The theories discussed in the first two chapters of this study will carry through to the remaining body of work. Chapter three begins my discussion of ancient femininity by turning to Homer’s epic, the Odyssey. Homer’s work serves as an archaic example within this investigation of femininity. Chapter four will turn to the 5th century Greek playwright, Aeschylus and his tragic trilogy, the Oresteia while chapter five will provide a final analysis of the two tragedies produced by Euripides: the Medea and the Bacchae. I will begin each chapter with my feminist interpretation of the ancient work in the form of a short summary. I will then provide a close reading of each text through the lens of feminist theory and the historical accounts discussed in the Fantham text. Drawing on the theories discussed in chapters one and two will allow me not only to give insight into the gendered interactions at play within each work but also to discuss the significance of femininity, deviance, and resistance