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The translation from Cupid and Psyche to beauty and Beast reflects the influence of Christianity that the woman's roles should be passive: the obedient child to the submissive wife that is packaged neatly on a wedding day to get shipped off with the china to her husband's house. The Piano, an Australian film, explores the historical exploitation of women in contracted marriage.
This concept does not originate with Apuleius' story, but stems from the later remake, that Beaumont crafts to instruct young ladies on imprending marriage. According to Apuleius, when Cupid was instructed by his jealous mother, Venus, to shoot Psyche, thereby causing her downfall he himself becomes the target of love. Rejected by society, Psyche remains alone, unloved and unmarried. Although beautiful and intelligent, no one particularly wants her; a fate often bemoaned by super-achieving women. Until lately, any women wanting to pursue a PhD or professional career, often sacrificed marriage to be accepted. Plotinus: Cupid and Psyche http://www.plotinus.com/myth_cupid_psych... beautifully illustrated version Rejected from society, nothing assauges the loneliness or pain within, Psyche courageously accepts her fate to be given in marriage to no mortal man, but a flying serpent. Like Iphigenia, she confronts her destiny of self-sacrifice out on a rock. Instead of being consumed, she wakes to find herself in an enchanted palace. The conflicts of the story center on the jealousy of Venus/Aphrodite of her beauty and the loyalty of Cupid. Venus, is no nasty mother-in-law, but ruthless in mythology, her alter-ego appearing in Ovid as Artemis who transforms the luckless Acteon into a stag to be devoured by his own hounds. Nor was human sacrifice a distant myth in Apuleius' time, shadowed by the brutal death of Orpheus by the frenzied Maenads in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Spurn the gods or incite their jealousy and nearly anything can happen including Arachene transformed into a spider. Like Pandora, Psyche is incited by curiosity, spurred on by the jealousy of her sisters, to violate the "No Peeking Rule" found throughout literature. In Bluebeard, the price is the young woman's death. Rebellious against oppressive ignorance, she peeks. Cupid disappears, moralizing that love cannot remain where distrust exists. Unfair in judgement, admittedly it must be difficult to be the wife or child of a mole or spy engaged in secret services of a government. Imagine answering the constant inquiries of what your husband does, or the constant gap in personal communication. "Honey, what did you do today?" "Sorry, it's classified. You know we're not allowed to discuss departmental business with the spice." Like Eve, she is cast out of paradise and left to harvest the thorns of life. |
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