Fashioning Eve: Prescribing Femininity in Paradise Lost
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This study on the issue of gender-role in Milton's Paradise Lost involves the ageless debate on the nature and proper role of women. Just as gender oriented criticism has brought the issue of feminity to our attention in our own age, the issues of proper gender-role was debated with comparable vigor during the Early Modern period. And, as I hope to show in the following, Milton's Paradise Lost, particularly with its depiction of Eve, also partakes of this debate. In the poem, a pre-lapsarian Eve is initially portrayed as an inquisitive and intelligent individual who exhibits a strong and independent personality. As such, Eve is indicative of a women who would not submit to patriarchal authority but instead raises questions about the patriarchal hierarchial and in effect subverting it to a degree. In the latter part of the poem, particularly during the reconciliation scene of Book 10, however, the post-lapsarian Eve displays yet another side of her that is contradictory to her earlier individualistic self, something that amounts to a model of feminine obedience. And, as I hope to show in the following, this contrasting image of an individualistic Eve who is associated with the Fall and then the later image of a penitent and obedient Eve being juxtaposed with the story of reconciliation and redemption suggests that Milton in Paradise Lost is attempting to fashion Eve in the image of an ideal feminine, prescribing qualities above all of obedience, passivity and deference in a woman, a model to which women were taught to emulate during the period.
Abstract
This study on the issue of gender-role in Milton's Paradise Lost involves the ageless debate on the nature and proper role of women. Just as gender oriented criticism has brought the issue of feminity to our attention in our own age, the issues of proper gender-role was debated with comparable vigor during the Early Modern period. And, as I hope to show in the following, Milton's Paradise Lost, particularly with its depiction of Eve, also partakes of this debate. In the poem, a pre-lapsarian Eve is initially portrayed as an inquisitive and intelligent individual who exhibits a strong and independent personality. As such, Eve is indicative of a women who would not submit to patriarchal authority but instead raises questions about the patriarchal hierarchial and in effect subverting it to a degree. In the latter part of the poem, particularly during the reconciliation scene of Book 10, however, the post-lapsarian Eve displays yet another side of her that is contradictory to her earlier individualistic self, something that amounts to a model of feminine obedience. And, as I hope to show in the following, this contrasting image of an individualistic Eve who is associated with the Fall and then the later image of a penitent and obedient Eve being juxtaposed with the story of reconciliation and redemption suggests that Milton in Paradise Lost is attempting to fashion Eve in the image of an ideal feminine, prescribing qualities above all of obedience, passivity and deference in a woman, a model to which women were taught to emulate during the period.
참고문헌 (21)
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