More new mythology

Female protagonists who are empowering and powerful are written by female authors, who are aware of their relationship to the tradition, who do not adhere to male myths, who do not merely reverse the terms, but create new apatriarchal spaces for their stories. It is in these stories that women can go to literature to define themselves, to find female protagonists, heroes, myths that contain archetypes that are repositories of strength for women. In these fictive worlds, a woman can engage in sexuality outside of the marriage and not be labeled as fallen, abnormal or a whore. These women possess Eros, a goddess like quality of self determination.

The new mythology

In the new mythology, the female protagonist’s control of the narrative is sharp, unmistakable. She has author-ity, knowingness, and her control of the language is as finely tuned as her sense of self; they are one and the same thing. She is very aware of her agency, and one of the ways she exhibits this agency is by the precision of her narrative and her imagery; it is self consciously dense, romantic and even perhaps pornographic. It is her story, the engine of the plot rest firmly in her hands, as she takes us back to when the story originated. She then self consciously and simultaneously evokes the other versions of the story, bringing them into a sharp focus, and then revises them. She is EROS personified. 

A creation myth

In the beginning, in the darkness, there was the word. In the beginning, in the darkness, the word said, "light" and a blue glow appeared on the horizon. Then the word said, "Brighter light," and it got brighter, brasher, cocky. It fact it just about killed the darkness, but it didn't. Soon after, it began to rain, and an umbrella appeared on the horizon. At the same time a path came into view, and then a man and a woman walking on that path underneath the umbrella in the rain. They were naked and wet, and the word said, “This is good.”

This is very good.

The woman held the umbrella over the man's head, already in love with his black wet hair, and he in love with her lips. And since there were no other words, except “light” they kissed instead, in the rain, underneath the black umbrella. They kissed for so long that small green vines grew which quickly became young trees,  swaying in the wind until a forest appeared and then a lake.

He kissed her lips, the lobes of her ears. She wound her arms around his neck, his waist. She dropped the umbrella, it skittered down the road, and a sudden gust of wind, threw it up in the air, where it became entangled in a tree branch. The sun came out, and they lay down in the green grass, the vines now caressing every part of their bodies.

Soon poppies, violently red, sprang up out of the warm earth. A turtle appeared in a mud puddle, a lizard darted between the yellow dandelions, his fingers entered her, and she sighed and said, “Love.” The first spoken word. The man thought, “This is good, this is very good.” As they lay there together, electricity was invented, and then the telephone. By then there were millions of men and women, who kissed each other every day.

There were other things, too, like science, math and money and language as well as eagles, devils, and gods. A multitude and a multiplicity of gods. And words, millions of words, Some words had more weight, more beauty, more color. But all of them told stories including the one about the man and the woman in the rain underneath a black umbrella.

Image:  Tamara de Lempicka

We can use the master's tools to rebuild our house

James Hillman, a myth scholar, incorporates a vision of archetypes that is more flexible, less patriarchal than Jung's.  His operational understanding of the archetype is not a fixed Platonic essence, such as anima and animus, but an image.  He writes,“‘by attaching archetypal to an image, we ennoble or empower the image with the wildest, richest and deepest possible significance." I would like this anthology to reveal this significance in the bad women archetypes, in transgressive and crazy women, because despite their negative connotations, they exhibit Eros which in its purest sense, is the drive for authenticity, for power, and the capacity of self actualization. 

Goddesses like Brigid in Briton, Sarasvati in India and Nidaba in Sumer were credited with the invention of the alphabet and the creation of language and writing.  They exhibited Eros, they re-drew the shape of the world around them. Yet, according to Annis Pratt, today “women like words have been considered symbolic objects of use in a masculine structure, linguistic tokens rather than wielders of words in our own right.”  Some feminist scholars have claimed its necessary to reinvent language to get the feminine back into the world, into literature.  I would disagree.  In the words of  Audre Lord, we can use the master's tools to rebuild our house.

What is her story?

Here is the outline; the typology of one version of Beauty and the Beast.  Of course, there are many others, but this is one of the earliest.  Note that the girl, unlike later versions, saves herself.  Jung says that folk tales are a map or a guide on the treacherous and tricky road to maturation. From this typology, what is her story?

-The wealthy bride groom is a wizard in disguise.

-Three daughters, two die at his hand

-The youngest daughter is imprisoned by the wizard.

- A key motif, and a test

-The youngest daughter, who is Innocent Incarnate, passes the test

-Miraculously, she saves her two sisters

-She frees all the slaughtered women who have come before her.

-She rolls herself in honey, then feathers, and disguised as a bird, she escapes

-The wizard dies when his castle is set on fire.

Where Mary becomes the mother of Lilith

The anima, in Jungian terminology, female energy--- should not be a fixed, universal essence, but rather an image or template that is multi-layered, malleable and flexible. With this revision perhaps the one dimensional Virgin Mother of the Bible, could collapse and embody both the woman and the goddess. It might be possible to reinscribe these archetypes as feminine heroes who are both divine and human, sacred as well as profane. Lilith can merge with Eve, and the resulting story would be both modern and ancient.

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