Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

Who needs Tinder with decor like this? Image

My favorite story of the anthology is the story of Pygmalion the sculptor, only because I find the story so ridiculous and pointless. The story is relatively short and succinct, but the fate of the sculptor of Paphos at the end of the story baffles me. Pygmalion's ego combined with his weird, lusty obsession with an inanimate object is for some reason just rewarded by the gods with no downsides, which is exceedingly rare in Greek/Roman mythology.

The Greek/Roman gods are not nice, and usually, if they aren't already battling with one another, they're terribly bored if they aren't meddling in mortal affairs. Usually Greek/Roman stories use some form of punishment/conflict with the gods as a way of conveying a lesson through the story (Arachne and Daedalus' hubris, Narcissus' obsession, and Midas' greed are all perfect examples of this).

However, apparently this doesn't really apply to Pygmalion, as there's no real lesson to be learned from this story, unless maybe that the author is trying to say that the best women are the ones you treat like objects. Pygmalion is a self-proclaimed misogynist (but to be fair, everyone was back then), but instead of changing anything about his views, he just sculpts himself his ideal woman out of ivory. He then falls madly in love with his ivory doll, giving it gifts and physically caressing it constantly.

And, according to Venus, this is perfectly normal behavior that should apparently be rewarded. On the day of the goddess' festival, Pygmalion offers a prayer to Venus to turn his ivory doll human, and Venus just says "Ok, sure!" and so Pygmalion and his new fleshy lover get married and live happily ever after.

Maybe this is just my more modern sensibilities talking, but this story just lacks substance to me. It's more creepy than romantic, and there's really not a conflict/lesson as Pygmalion's "problems" are pretty much just solved immediately for no real reason. I am clearly not this story's intended audience, though I'm kind of failing to see who exactly the audience is, except for maybe all the lonely sculptors out there. If Pygmalion existed today, something tells me he'd be wearing a fedora and saying "M'lady" a lot.

Comments

Storybook Comment Wall

Mothman: Image My Storybook Project, Mythical Monsters of the New World can be found here I hope you all enjoy it, and I appreciate any feedback you can give! EDIT 3/5: I have heavily revised my Introduction, so if you have not read the new version yet, do so now!

Introduction to Brett the Graphic Designer

Hey! My name is Brett Drake and I'm a senior Public Relations major with a Classical Culture minor. I'm from the small town of Wagoner, Oklahoma (if you've heard of it, chances are you're also from northeast OK!) and while I've enjoyed my time here at OU, I can't wait to graduate in May. I want to become a graphic designer in the OKC area after graduation and help local businesses build their brands. My favorite class last semester was Digital Design (surprise, surprise) as it allowed me to really hone my skills as a designer across all different types of media. Me at the Coliseum : Photo by a friend Last summer, as I talked about in my favorite place post , I was able to study abroad in Italy for the month of June, allowing me to finally travel outside of the country for the first time in my life. While traveling abroad had its ups and downs (I arrived in Rome running on a good 3 hours of sleep and had lost my luggage), overall it was an amazing experie

Week 6 Storylab: Horror Microfictions

The face had different eyes: Image Mirror- 6 words My reflection was smiling. I wasn't. Stars - 25 words Growing up, I always loved the stars. Now that I'm among them, my love is gone. No one told me they had eyes. Call ended . Authors Note- For both of these stories, I used the theme of sight. The idea was to write two stories about seeing something, and not liking what you saw. I have always enjoyed writing horror, and I find that many people have a strange fascination with scary stories (after all, 5 of the top 20 podcasts on Spotify are true crime podcasts about murder). I really wanted to challenge myself to write something that could unsettle the reader in as few words as possible. I also like sci-fi a lot, which served as an influence for the second story. I hope you enjoyed them! Let me know of any criticisms or suggestions for other stories you may have, as I would like to do this again!

Brett's Blog

Search This Blog