Pandora, Flame Fractals

Jane Ellen Harrison states that in an earlier set of myths, Pandora was a manifestation of the Great Goddess, provider of the gifts that made life and culture possible, and that Hesiod's tale can be seen as part of a propaganda campaign to demote her from her previously revered status. The Hesiodic myth's misogyny is apparent in the transformation of a goddess who gives all good things to men into a mortal woman who is intrinsically evil and who, moreover, introduces every conceivable evil to mankind. Modern feminist literary criticism has also focused on the gendered symbolism inherent in the myth. Pandora's jar, feminist theory suggests, represents the female womb. That the jar releases a myriad of evils upon the earth suggests the phallocentric culture's unease with female sexuality. For further feminist study of the myth, see Charlene Spretnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece; A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Mythology, 1977.

 
[ click here to learn more ]