Eve's Apology Essay

Is Eve´s Apology a feminist or anti-feminist poem? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary feminism is “the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”. This poem talks about how Eve is responsible for bringing evil into the world, but that Adam should also be blamed for it. Eve´s Apology isn’t a feminist poem in fact it is antifeminist because it portrays Eve as lesser than Adam, and as weak.
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

We can see the first attempt at the beginning of the poem when she writes “What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused”. In this line Eve is weakness and Adam is strength, because Eve offers Adam the apple. We can also see this idea later in the poem in the following lines “And then to lay the fault on Patience' back, That we (poor women) must endure it all”. In these lines the author uses the word patience to refer to Eve; often times this word is associated with weakness. Lanyer then proceeds to write poor women in parenthesis to let us know who she is referring to when she writes “That we must endure it all”. I think that the word poor is used to try and make the reader feel pity for