Author: Madeline Miller
overview
In her retelling of the story of Pygmalion, Madeline Miller tells an objectified woman’s plight through Galatea’s narrative. She is confined in a hospital room by her husband, Pygmalion the sculptor, despite not being ill, as a punishment for trying to escape from him. Throughout the short story, none of the characters around her treat her as human, but rather as her husband’s possession. Instead of being discouraged, she uses society’s view of her to her advantage to manipulate those around her, ultimately achieving her goal of revenge and an end to her suffering.
context
The original story of Pygmalion appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In her afterword, Miller discusses how the story is often romanticized by media. However, she and many others see it from a different angle. By today’s standards, Pygmalion is indubitably an incel—one who hates women, yet cannot quash their desire for them. In the original tale, Galatea does not have a voice. Here, Miller grants her, and the spirit of many frustrated women, an amplified one.
In Metamorphoses, another shorter story sets the scene for “Pygmalion”: “Two Incidents of Venus’ Anger”. In the city of Amathus in Cyprus, women who do not acknowledge Venus’ divinity are turned into the first whores. After time, they no longer blushed from shame; “it was no transition really, / From what they were to actual rock and stone” (Metamorphoses 241).
From here, “Pygmalion” begins. The sculptor is reviled by these shameless women and chooses to live a life devoid of women and “the vices / Nature has given the female disposition / Only too often” (242). Rather than engage with them, he instead sculpts a beauty from stone. He is so enamored by his work that he caresses it and takes it to bed as if it were a real maiden. He prays to Venus that his sculpture will come to life. When his wish comes true, rather than recognizing her as a woman, he instead “over and over touches / The body with his hand” (243). She is reduced to a body, an object of desire. And, unlike the whores of Amathus, she blushes at his advances.
takeaways and thoughts
- Clashing hatred and desire lead to dehumanization; an object cannot have independent thoughts nor speak their desires
- Anger arises when expectations are thwarted