Essay: The Portrayal of Women in Cupid and Psyche

Venus Punishing Psyche with a Task by Luca Giordano (ca. 1692-1702)

The portrayal of women in stories and literature has evolved drastically since ancient times. In ancient stories and literature there is a pattern of women being portrayed as weak and naive as well as being made out to be slaves to their baser instincts. This pattern is a testament to the low status that women held in Ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Aristotle, one of the world's greatest philosophers even once claimed that women were in fact "deformed men". In the Cupid and Psyche unit, two of the main characters Psyche and Venus are women, and even though the play a large role in the story, the ancient attitude of the inferiority and weakness of women is readily present.

Throughout the story Psyche is presented as a woman of astonishing beauty. There is even a section in the story dedicated explicitly to describing how people abandoned their worship of Venus, the goddess of beauty, and began to worship Psyche as though she were a goddess. While heralding Psyche for her incredible beauty may seem positive, the mention that she had caused people to abandon their love for Venus, one of their gods, incites ideas that she is a seductress, a trait that is not highly viewed in classical societies.

Beyond Psyche's beauty almost no other positive characteristic is described about her. Instead she is portrayed as a beautiful but naive, disobedient, and weak woman. Her husband constantly has to warn her not to believe the words of her sisters (who are also interestingly enough portrayed as the bad guys of the story) and not to try to find out what she looks like. She seems to have no thoughts of her own except to willingly believe what everyone else tells her. Every time she is faced with a problem her first instinct is to weep until someone comes along to solve it for her. This is so clearly a representation of women in society at the time. They were regarded as property, as serving no real purpose except to carry children, items to be seen and not heard.

Even being a goddess, Venus, the other major female character in the story, could not escape a negative and misogynistic portrayal. She was made to possess all of the qualities attributed to women which Psyche did not fulfill.  Venus was jealous, vindictive, and irrational. Beyond being weak and stupid, women in Classical societies were thought to be slaves to their base instincts, basically animals. The characteristic possessed by Venus in this story, directly corroborate that ideal. Upon seeing Psyche, Venus is so full of jealousy she immediately seeks to destroy her. She devises a plan for Psyche's demise and charges her son with the task, and when her son goes against her wishes she proves to be vindictive and violent. There is nothing positive about Venus's character in this story at all.

Throughout the story of Cupid and Psyche, the only positive characteristic attributed to any of the female characters were their beauty. Even that concession however is riddled with negativity as it ends up being the major source of strife throughout the story. The portrayal of the female characters in this story is a true testament to the misogynistic and patriarchal culture of the ancient Greek and Romans.

Links: Reading unit: Cupid and Psyche
Psyche's Beauty
Psyche's Husband Warns Her
Venus and the Goddesses
Venus and Psyche