Analysis Of I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields

Disney movies may want us to believe that Greek Mythology is all about heroes defeating the villains and that the Gods are the good guys. However, minimal research will reveal that this isn’t the case. In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnet “I Dreamed I Moved among the Elysian Fields” she intertwines the allusions to mythological Greek woman with the speaker 's own experience to make a powerful statement on the sexual objectification and victimization of women in the 1930s.
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
This juxtaposition is what leads the reader to understand the true meaning of the poem. For example, “Danae” is a “vessel” for “Jove” (lines 5­6). Danae is belittled to an object and claimed by Jove while Jove remains “golden” and godly. In lines seven and eight, “Jove the Bull” “bore away” at “Europa”. “Bore”, meaning to make a hole in something, emphasises the violent sexual imagery perpetrated in this poem. Jove disguises himself as a bull in order to take Europa away to Crete so he can rape her. Not only that, but she becomes pregnant afterwards and “bore” a child. Europa was physically “away” from her home because Jove had stolen her, but Jove “bore away” at her physically as well as emotionally. Finally, in line 8, the “Swan’s featherless bride” refers to Leda, who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. Not only is she not mentioned by name but she is owned by the “Swan” as demonstrated by the possessive noun. While the other women had minor historical context, Leda is reduced to three words. Not only that but Jove 's violence against the women increase with every name, Leda being alluded to last drives home the pain he
The time that began the poem is completely shattered and served as a jolt of reality to the reader. Yet that raises a pertinent question: why is, in line 4, she is weaving a garland for “your living head”? In the 1930s, who would have perpetrated violent acts against women in the name of sexual gratification yet still hold expectations that women take care of them? By making men in general the placeholder for “you” in the poem, it creates a much stronger and universal statement about the sexual inequality women faced. She relates to women who have had “a god for [a] guest” yet it seems ironic because she is criticising the way these women have been treated (10). It could be argued, instead, that it is not that she sees men as gods, but that is the way they see themselves. Zeus was a god who ruled Olympus and felt entitled to any woman he wanted, immortal or otherwise. He encapsulates the societal mindset that men were dominant and women were there to benefit them. In all the allusions to the Greek myths, Zeus disguises himself in order to trick the women of his desires. The entitlement men felt towards women and their bodies was easily guised as the “social norm”. Embracing a wider meaning to “you” than just as a reference to a single person adds complexity to the poem; it creates a sense of universality. Not all women can identify with an act of violence