Carolyn Heilbrun's work Toward a Recognition of Androgyny claims to be the first deep analysis of androgynous storytelling and symbolism in English literature. Essentially an extensive case study of stories and novels from Greek antiquity up to the 19th century, the essay argues that androgyny has existed as an ideal in storytelling for centuries, albeit as a “hidden river” (xx). More general statements on the androgynous ideal can often be inferred from the analysis of specific texts.
Heilbrun begins her expedition at the linguistic source of the word 'androgyny'; “[t]his ancient Greek word – from andro (male) and gyn (female) – defines a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes, and the human impulses expressed by men and women, …show more content…
The same rule applied to priestesses in ancient religions; unlike other women, they were not tied to or forced to obey any man (9).
An even more obviously androgynous character is Teiresias, who appears in Oedipus Rex. He has lived as both man and woman and was gifted with sight into the future by Zeus to make up for the loss of his actual eye sight. Thus, in Teiresias androgyny is connected to knowledge and an extraordinary awareness of present and future (cf. 9-13).
But the appearance of androgynous characters is not limited to antiquity. Shakespeare frequently used cross-dressing and characters of ambiguous gender identity in his plays. The deliberate subversion of gender roles is not punished as a transgression: “disguise for Shakespeare is not always falsification, or not evilly so. Disguise may be another indication of the wide spectrum of roles possible to individuals if they can but find the convenient trappings of another persona” …show more content…
A narrative can be androgynous on a structural level. Heilbrun argues that Sophocles' play Antigone is androgynous insofar as the title heroine's actions, taking it upon her to bury her dead brother against the direct order of her uncle Theon, could have been performed by a male character, while her betrothed Haemon pleading with his father to pardon Antigone and commiting suicide after she is dead are rather passive actions more fit for a female character in Greek tragedy. The plot would remain essentially the same if their roles were to be reversed. This observation is translated into the more general rule that “it is in those works where the roles of the male and female protagonist can be reversed without appearing ludicrous or perverted that the androgynous ideal is present” (10). Androgyny can also exist in actions which reconcile femininity and masculinity, as for example the Odyssey, which represents a return from the exclusively masculine sphere of war to the feminine sphere of home, with Penelope in Ithaca (5). A similar argument is made for Oedipus Rex, which, in Freudian tradition, has been interpreted as a narrative about male self-castration and crime against the patriarchal order. It is one of Heilbrun's main objectives in Toward a Recognition of Androgyny to offer an alternative to canonized literary criticism, and she points out that rejection of patriarchal traditions does not
Heilbrun begins her expedition at the linguistic source of the word 'androgyny'; “[t]his ancient Greek word – from andro (male) and gyn (female) – defines a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes, and the human impulses expressed by men and women, …show more content…
The same rule applied to priestesses in ancient religions; unlike other women, they were not tied to or forced to obey any man (9).
An even more obviously androgynous character is Teiresias, who appears in Oedipus Rex. He has lived as both man and woman and was gifted with sight into the future by Zeus to make up for the loss of his actual eye sight. Thus, in Teiresias androgyny is connected to knowledge and an extraordinary awareness of present and future (cf. 9-13).
But the appearance of androgynous characters is not limited to antiquity. Shakespeare frequently used cross-dressing and characters of ambiguous gender identity in his plays. The deliberate subversion of gender roles is not punished as a transgression: “disguise for Shakespeare is not always falsification, or not evilly so. Disguise may be another indication of the wide spectrum of roles possible to individuals if they can but find the convenient trappings of another persona” …show more content…
A narrative can be androgynous on a structural level. Heilbrun argues that Sophocles' play Antigone is androgynous insofar as the title heroine's actions, taking it upon her to bury her dead brother against the direct order of her uncle Theon, could have been performed by a male character, while her betrothed Haemon pleading with his father to pardon Antigone and commiting suicide after she is dead are rather passive actions more fit for a female character in Greek tragedy. The plot would remain essentially the same if their roles were to be reversed. This observation is translated into the more general rule that “it is in those works where the roles of the male and female protagonist can be reversed without appearing ludicrous or perverted that the androgynous ideal is present” (10). Androgyny can also exist in actions which reconcile femininity and masculinity, as for example the Odyssey, which represents a return from the exclusively masculine sphere of war to the feminine sphere of home, with Penelope in Ithaca (5). A similar argument is made for Oedipus Rex, which, in Freudian tradition, has been interpreted as a narrative about male self-castration and crime against the patriarchal order. It is one of Heilbrun's main objectives in Toward a Recognition of Androgyny to offer an alternative to canonized literary criticism, and she points out that rejection of patriarchal traditions does not