In Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women, the word “apology” more accurately means “defense” around the early 15th century, so therefore, Lanyer does not apologize for Eve’s behaviour; instead, she creates a persuasive argument emphasizing the need for women to become equals with men. Even though Lanyer carved her mark in history as the first woman to pursue a fight against patronage through literature, one could easily flip her argument and discredit her ideas because her lack of logical and biblical foundation. Her arguments against Pontius Pilate, her claim of Adam’s sin being more immense, and her defense of Eve do not have any solid foundations in biblical literature, nor are they built around enough logic to create a solid argument. Lanyer’s …show more content…
With this ethos and pathos driven comparison, she asks to “let not us women glory in men’s fall,” because men have been the sinners while women have been the voice of love and empathy (ll.15). The problem with Lanyer’s argument is Pilate is a victim of persuasion, just as Eve had been when she encountered the serpent. Pilate called out to his people after they demanded the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus and asked “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” to which the people responded “Let him be crucified” Pilate recognized Jesus’ innocence, but fell to the persuasion of the crowd when he realized “he could prevail nothing, [and]... rather a tumult was made” so he rinsed his hands to try to claim the blood of Jesus didn’t belong on his hands, and he bent to the people’s will (Matthew 27:10, KJV). Ironically, Pontius’ sentencing of Jesus consisted of the same concepts of the downfall of Eve because of sinful persuasion - neither Pilate nor his wife wished for the death of whom they both saw as an innocent man. Lanyer claims that “[Eve] had no power to see; the after coming harm [of eating the fruit] did not appear,” but men and women alike know which choice is moral and which choice is immoral, and just like Pilate, Eve …show more content…
According to her, “If any evil did in [Eve] remain, Being made of [Adam], he was the ground of all,” so therefore, she assumed the root of all sin is Adam because of his origin (ll. 66). She builds this point beginning in stanza four where she claims Adam is “most to blame” because he embodied “strength” while Eve embodied “weakness,” but the problem with this interpretation is her focus on common patriarchal ideas. Her goal is to persuade men to let women “have [their] liberty again” and “...[be] free from tyranny” when her arguments contrast men and women, portraying women as empathetic and loving while portraying men as malicious and powerful, stressing they are indeed unequal (ll.35 and ll. 81-6). Because she focuses on pathos and emphasizes the positives she sees within women, she neglects her original goal to be be free from misogyny in exchange for portraying her gender as superior. Even though she claims to be the better of the gender by emphasizing a woman’s empathy and godliness, she describes Adam as “the perfectest man that ever breathed on earth” and uses the idea men are superior and more capable than women because Eve was only grafted from Adam’s rib, and not created directly from the dust (ll. 42). By using pathos to portray the contrasts between what she believes are the good and evil differences between
Looking back through many historical time periods, people are able to observe the fact that women were generally discriminated against and oppressed in almost any society. However, these periods also came with women that defied the stereotype of their sex. They spoke out against this discrimination with a great amount of intelligence and strength with almost no fear of the harsh consequences that could be laid out by the men of their time. During the Medieval era, religion played a major role in the shaping of this pessimistic viewpoint about women. The common belief of the patriarchal-based society was that women were direct descendants of Eve from The Bible; therefore, they were responsible for the fall of mankind. All of Eve’s characteristics from the biblical story were believed to be the same traits of medieval women. Of course, this did not come without argument. Two medieval women worked to defy the female stereotype, the first being the fictional character called The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The second woman, named Margery Kempe, was a real human being with the first English autobiography written about her called The Book of Margery Kempe. In these two texts, The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe choose to act uniquely compared to other Christians in the medieval time period because of the way religion is interpreted by them. As a result, the women view themselves as having power and qualities that normal women of their society did not.
...ualities and influences we want to accept as truth instead of blindly accepting the book of myths. She encourages women to descend the ladder and find the “thing itself” and the meaning that thing has for each individual woman.
Although, this statement is accurate at times people sometimes do not realize that men and woman are treated as equals in certain situations. In the Genesis story by Phyllis Trible, She discusses how people often view the story of Adam and Eve as male supremacy and female subordination but she explains how that statement is false and that both Adam and Eve are treated as equals (Trible,141). Throughout, the article Trible provides the readers with examples and statement to how Adam and Eve share equal equality. An example of equality between the two sexes is when God creates Eve out of Adams' rib, “This, at last, is bone of bone and flesh of my flesh, She shall be called ‘ishshah because she was taken out of ‘ish” ( Trible,142). God created the woman out of the man's rib rather than his feet or head because she wanted them to be in equal carrell with each other. The rib symbolizes them being side by side in a partnership rather than one being more advantaged than the other. Also, but the man and woman owe both there lives solely to God, although, the female was made from a man the reasoning she was created in the first place was due to God (Trible,142). Therefore, both sexes were created equally out of raw materials there were no differences in how they were brought into the world (Trible,142). Another example used in the
...to mankind in Paradise Lost - one of the fundamental concepts in Christianity and vital to Milton's objective to "justify the ways of God to men" (1, 26) - the gods in the Aeneid are continually reminding Aeneas that he cannot afford to be distractive by the temptresses that are women because the future of Rome lays in his hands. Milton's God, on the other hand, allows Eve to fall and her blatant transgression caused the loss of paradise and all of creation has to experience the consequences of original sin. In Paradise Lost Eve was expected to submit to her ultimate authority, Adam. Rather, it is Adam in Book IX who submits to Eve's unreasonable discourse on separation. Indeed, the implication of a man (as a superior being) succumbing to feminine wiles and passion is an intense concept which - for both Virgil and Milton - threatened the very basis of their society.
In her article, “Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies”, Phyllis Trible discusses the issues centered toward women in the bible (Trible). She addresses issues not just concerning equality, but also how men viewed women in biblical times. Trible examines the role of women in the bible, and the misconception they carry, that leads many into harms way.
In the poem we get the picture that Adam is lamenting for the mistake they have done and specially blames and insults Eve's female nature and wonders why do god ever created her. She begs his forgiveness, and pleads with him not to leave her. She reminds him that the snake tricked her, but she fully accepts the blame for sinning against both God and him. She argues that unity and love c...
“It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are” (Emma Watson). Since the beginning of time, Eve was portrayed as the first sinner and this could be the reason why women are still paying for her sins to this day, from either education to jobs and look to stereotypes. Though now women are crawling out of the hole of inequality faster than before and soon women will be able to reach the light they have been waiting to grasp.
Women of these times were obviously not equal to their male counterparts. In modern days however, women are thought of as equals in society. The problem is that they are still not being treated as equals in a religious aspect as well as many other aspects. Elizabeth A. Johnson draws attention to how, despite being considered equal in Genesis, women had their worth ignored “Consistently subordinated and demeaned in the theories, symbols, rituals, A large wave of pro women thinking has arisen in the form of feminist theology. This line of thought draws from Genesis and the idea that men and women were created equally.
In our present era, there is no doubt that the evolution of women's rights has come a long way. It is in the Western Culture that these values for which women have fought for generations, are in conflict with Genesis 1-3. The events that occur in this "creation story" are crucial in that it begins when God creates man in his own likeness and man is given domination over all living things. The significance is the prominence given to men; God is male and his most important creation is male. The biblical account underlines the supremacy of man while making it clear that women play an inferior role. Furthermore, the biblical account also describes how woman are disobedient and yield to temptation, the result of which is the expulsion of both Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. In the poem "How Cruel is the Story of Eve", Stevie Smith's castigation towards the biblical story of Eve demonstrates how women have been victims of despair and suffering since the beginning of time. She holds it responsible for cruelty towards women in history, she implies that the values derived from the story of Eve were forced upon women without choice, and finally, she challenges the authenticity of the religious tale on a whole. Without a doubt, women have fallen victim to an untrue, religious tale from the beginning of time, and the poem is an outcry representing the suffering of women throughout history.
The poem presents the idea that Eve is inferior to Adam in order to justify the argument that Adam should receive more blame than Eve. In the first two lines we are told that Adam cannot be excused and that he should have most of the blame “But surely Adam can not be excused, Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame”. Lanyer then tells us that he was the “Lord and King of all the earth”, and that he was the “The perfectest man that ever breathed on earth”. She tells us that because he was King of all Earth, his actions were framed by Gods word, and he was the most perfect man then he should be blamed more than Eve. By telling us that he is perfect and blaming him more she is making Eve inferior because if him being perfect is the reason why he should receive more blame then that
She seems to believe that manhood is the ability to perform acts of “direst cruelty” without remorse. Throughout the play we see that she worries her husband will not be man enough to do what she and him deem necessary to attain the throne. “Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness . . .” She says. Constantly we see her telling her husband to “man up” - to stop feeling remorse or guilt or fear and to start behaving like she believes a man should; like a being with no guilt or remorse. However, it is this wish for her to lose all “passage to remorse” that eventuates in her death - her corruption - from the madness that comes upon her i...
He claims that Eve suffered a harsher punishment, believed she resembled God, and caused Adam’s sin. According to Foscarini, Eve sinned from ignorance and inconstancy. He backs up his argument by stating Eve is not excused because of her ignorance and is more knowledgeable than given credit, since God created her. Foscarini says that in the Bible, the serpent approached Eve with a question rather than through persuasion, meaning Eve simply answered a question and unknowingly fell into a trap. Although Adam was assigned to protect her, Eve is not off the hook. Eve’s pride caused the sin, since the devil promised her knowledge, which made her arrogant and inflated her pride. Eve receives the same consequences as Adam, in addition she must also be in pain while birthing a child. In conclusion, Eve’s punishment should be greater than Adam’s. Ludovico argues that all of Adam’s faults are her responsibility. He references a quote from Aristotle, “the cause of a cause is the cause of that which is caused” (Bartlett, 92). This quote explains that Adam’s sin, which Eve caused, resulted in original sin. Since Adam followed Eve’s example, Eve would take responsibility in the first place, therefore her sin was more serious. As Foscarini states, “she deceived her husband more than the serpent would deceive him” (Bartlett, 92). He supports his claim by quoting Christ, “They who have betrayed me to you have
Throughout "Eve's Apology," Layner confidently makes her point of female inequality and female injustice by using poetic devices, while continuing to keep an ironic tone and bring out unusual language. She is clearly trying to prove that woman and men are equal. She suggests that because Adam is a man, thus "stronger" than Eve, he should be held responsible for eating the forbidden fruit rather than the "weaker" Eve. Layner believes that men should not look down upon women as lesser and weaker than themselves; she successfully proves that women deserve an equal status with men. Throughout the poem, Layner makes the point that the reason men have always been condescending to woman is dishonest because men are actually more at fault for the pain we endure today.
In Book IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve makes a very important and revealing speech to the tree of knowledge. In it, she demonstrates the effect that the forbidden fruit has had on her. Eve’s language becomes as shameful as the nakedness that Adam and Eve would later try to cover up with fig leaves. After eating the forbidden apple, Eve’s speech is riddled with blasphemy, self-exaltation, and egocentrism.
...to this seduction because she wishes for an alternate world, a world where she would understand her identity, shed her naïveté, and gain independence from Adam. God and Adam try to conquer Eve by imposing rules and ownership upon her, but this does not work. The mother of all mankind falls from her state of grace and innocence when she perceives that she will gain from her seduction by Satan and by disobeying God and Adam.