Pandora
Jean Cousin the Elder, Louvre Museum, France, Year 1550, Oil on panel, 97 cm x 150 cm
Jason Wong-Hua
In Jean Cousin the Elder’s Eva Prima Pandora, a naked woman is depicted laying down in a cave with a skull and apple branch in one arm and a pithos and snake wrapped around the other. These are blatant allusions to the myths of Pandora and Eve, where Greco-Roman myth and Christianity share common themes in their antagonistic portrayal of women. The apple branch and snake represent the biblical story of Eve, while the pithos and skull represent the myth of Pandora. In both stories, these women are greeted with consequences for their actions and are deemed the sole contributors for the downfall of mankind. I believe that this portrayal of women is not only misogynistic, but it is also heteronormative and reinforces themes of patriarchy.
In Works and Days, Pandora is introduced as a deceptively beautiful evil created to be put on Earth to punish men for Prometheus's actions. “... named this woman Pandora, because all who have their homes on Olympus gave her [as] a gift, a bane to men who work for their bread.” (West 93-4). Not only was Pandora created for the sole purpose of being a gift meant to trick men, she was also given the personality of a dog and a thief, which is bad in nature. Pandora also represents the first woman, which implies that all women by nature are evil and not what they seem on the outside. Pandora then, “removed the great cover of the jar with her hands and scattered the evils within and for mortals devised sorrowful troubles.” (94). As Pandora is a metaphor for women, her opening of the jar insinuates that women are to blame for all of men’s evils and painful diseases. Similarly, in the bible, Eve also takes on the role of being the first woman and represents all women. Created from the rib of Adam, Eve was created as a companion for him (Genesis 2:21). A serpent then persuades her to eat the forbidden apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which she then does and gets her expelled from the Garden of Eden. Because of this incident, Eve is sentenced to a life of sadness and maternity. Much like the myth of Pandora, Eve is also put in a scenario where her actions reflect that of all women and is punished for her wrongdoings, which consequently translates to all women.
In both stories, men are centralized only for women to enter as an antagonist that ruins everything. In Pandora’s myth, she is objectified as a beautiful gift to men, whereas Eve is created as Adam’s companion. This implies that women are only what their use is to men. It is also heteronormative and misogynistic to assume that the woman’s purpose is that of a seductress (in Pandora’s case) or birthgiver (in Eve’s case) for men. As these stories were written and told by men in a male-dominated society, it is clear that men’s reflections of women are hollow, self-serving and deeply misogynistic. This painting of a beautiful woman simply unveils the similarities in how both stories share the same patriarchal thinking.
Works Cited:
Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version. BibleGateway, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A21&version=NRSV, Accessed 14 Feb. 2022
West, M. L. Hesiod: Works and Days. Clarendon Pr., 1978.