Ovid's Metamorphose

Divine Pallas challenges the natural order and imposes her power to leave Arachne stuck in time as a spider while also leaving her in a timeless state through her new physical form and its progeny. Pallas, being the embodiment of weaving through the divine, is an extension of the natural element of craft and constructs Arachne’s identity through metamorphosis into a spider during an unnatural transformation. Her humble origin and status create a tension with Arachne’s pride since through her craft she becomes distinguished to an elevated status. From her craft there is a tension between same and other in that the natural element of weaving is preserved through her unnatural physical and psychic transformation. The change from human to spider represents the magnitude of impact to such an unnatural event. Ovid’s

Arachne’s identity is constructed through the duality of craft and its rhetoric that functions to create her character and destroy her physical being. Interaction and admiration from the divine places Arachne in an almost equal position of status while also creating a distinction between her, a mortal, and the divine and between her own identity and that of her community’s. Arachne’s defining characteristic is her craft, and the distinction she receives from it separates her from her humble community. She had “no distinction in her place of birth/ Or pedigree” but despite this, “in all the towns of Lydia Arachne’s work had won her a