The Confusion Of Erinius

In ancient Greek religion and mythology,Erinyes,referred as infernal goddesses,is a collective name for three goddesses,including Alecto(the endless anger),Megaera(the jealous rage),and Tisiphone(the vengeful destruction).According to those literatures,these goddesses have huge bodies,bloody-red eyes,dog heads or snake-like hairs.Holding torches or whips,they mercilessly punish and torture those who commit crimes.Frequently,Erinyestake place in not only ancient Greek dramas,but also later literatures such as Iphigenie auf Tauris by Goethe.According to literary traditions,the vitality of the story of infernal goddesses embodies by not only re-writes of religious stories by generations of authors,but also variations of the goddesses' images in numerous literatures.Examples include Medea in Medea by Greece's Euripides,Lilith,the first wife of Adam in the Old Testament,Ruth in The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Britain's Weldon,Qiqiao Cao in The Rouge of the North by China's Zhang.Literary images with infernal goddesses' characters are becoming abundant,with a trend of variation and systemization.Thus,infernal goddesses,as a prototype,has earned its value for study.Stories of infernal goddesses exist within not only literatures,but also wider literary traditions.The religious myth of infernal goddesses,deeply rooted in literary activities participants' mind,is a foundation for female revenge stories' writing and a guarantee for those stories' acceptance.Meanwhile,it spreads to and penetrates into sectors other than literary activities.And it becomes an integral part of the popular culture.It's worth noting that,another myth,standing on the opposite of infernal goddesses,has an even longer history and a more solid foundation.The core of this myth is female's tolerance and forbearance,which is widely accepted due to emphasizes and revises on certain moral excellences.While this myth denies female's revenging behaviors,it advocates female victims to forgive persecutors.It values female's sacrifices,loyalty as a wife,and love for offspring as a mother.And it restrains even female's requests for rights.Female's tolerance and forbearance,lying in the core of this myth,implicitlycorrespond with the structure and the function of uterus,which has a potential for pregnancy and a tolerance for painful periods and giving birth.This correspondence attributes uterus as a material carrier and a proof for its legitimacy for the myth.Simultaneously,it wipes out the fabricating process of the myth,making it something supposed to be.However,the myth is actually fabricated in history,slightly after the process of male dominating.Also,the process of bolding and centering the myth is the process that the myth of infernal goddesses is marginalized.In literatures,the moral excellences of such myth are embodied as female images with a character like 'Angel in the House'.Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,two American critics,interpreted the opposite image of 'Angel in the House' as 'Madwoman in the Attic',which originally comes from the image of the mad ex-wife who was locked in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.This essay argues that,the image of infernal goddesses is another opposite image of 'Angel in the House'.While both suffer from insults or hurts,'Madwoman in the Attic' bursts inward but infernal goddesses resist outward.In those literatures,female images with infernal characters have at least equivalent value and charm comparing with 'Madwoman in the Attic'.Studies about female's revenge stories can be inspired by the unbalanced conflicting relationship of those two myths.Therefore it will be more in-depth perspectives available.The reason for the studying female revenge stories based on the context of modern American fictions is that,first off,fictions are the most suited style for study due to methodologies and tools brought by the structuralist theory of mythology and narratology.Then,the writing,spreading and accepting of modern American fictions mostly coincides with feminist movement as well as the establishing,spreading and accepting of feminist literary theory.Finally,there are abundant and sophisticated female images with infernal characters in modern American fictions.Female revenge stories in these fictions usually have irreconcilable conflicts and complexplots rolled in one.They show tensions by conflicts in emotional,ethical,moral and legal aspects.The interpreting,comparing and analyzing in this study is expected to receive results in multiple aspects,which can be creative and valuable.This paper includes five sections.The first section introduces the reason,current stage and methodology of this study.The second section analyzes stories of female's revenge-by-the-use-of-uterus with certain fictions,especially 'revenging-by-murdering-son' stories.It comparatively analyzes stories that females maintain male domination and stories that females resist male domination.When analyzing beyond fictions,it focuses on the establishment process of the myth of female moral excellences as well as the establishment and the core mechanism of male domination behind that myth.The third section comparatively analyzes stories that females revenge with so called female characters and stories that females revenge by abandoning such characters.It also analyzes the misogyny tendency in some female's revenge stories.Beyond fictions,the paper describes the concept of social gender and analyzes its value and limits at digesting the myth of female moral excellences.The fourth section uses certain fictions to analyze female's revenge stories and emotional plots within the stories.It examines female characters with a revenge mission for blood relatives,those in classic 'revenge-for-love' modes,and those emphasizing sisterhood during the revenge.The last section compares the myth of infernal goddesses,represented in female's revenge stories in modern American fictions,and the mainstream myth of female moral excellences.It suggests the power relations between genders in reality underneath those myths.