A Historical Reclamation

Historical reclamation, both fictional and non-fictional, has been increasingly prevalent over the last five years. Groups once pushed to the margins have a spotlight, albeit smaller than a wealthy, white man, but a spotlight, nonetheless. Ideas assumed to be biological fact are being reconsidered; old history is being unearthed and re-examined with fresh eyes, away from Victorian influence; and the third wave of feminism (including intersectionality) is gaining more traction. Currently, we are at a time of great change, and it is reflected in our literature.

Madeline Miller sought to revive Galatea, Circe, and several Greek mythological characters through her writing. She made Greek mythology inclusive. In much of her work, she gave voice to characters that were otherwise secondary and, thus, voiceless. In Song of Achilles, Miller wrote about queer love, instead of war, between Achilles and Patroclus. In Circe, Miller gave background to the witch-goddess who played a secondary character in The Odyssey, an epic about Odysseus’s journey home after the Trojan War.

For me, Galatea is my favorite of Miller’s work thus far. For a short story, it packs a punch aimed at white men who seek to define womanhood and what it means to be a woman. To appreciate what Miller changed to give voice to Galatea, we first must understand the story’s origin.

Ovid originally wrote the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion in Metamorphoses, book 10, labeled “Orpheus’ Song: Pygmalion” (a partial version of the poem can be found here). Pygmalion was a sculptor based in Cyprus (there is some variation in which he is the king of Cyprus). Disillusioned by the women in his town, he creates a statue of the ideal woman (not named in the poem, but known through mythology as Galatea), embodying all aspects of femininity, entirely inspired by his male gaze.

“Sick of the vices with which the female sex has been so richly endowed, he chose for a number of years to remain unmarried, without a partner to share his bed.”
Lines 245-248, Book 10, Metamorphoses

Side note*: The women Pygmalion refers to are the Propoetides from the poem Orpheus song: the Cerastae and Propoetides. In which Ovid wrote: “It’s said that they were first to offer their bodies and beauty for sale. Then after these harlots has lost all shame, and the blood no longer ran to their cheeks but congealed as hard as their natures, it didn’t take much of a change to transform them to solid granite.”

*(There’s a lot to break down in this excerpt, so we’ll get back to it later).

In creating a statue of the “ideal” woman, he falls “in love with his creation.” He “kissed it and thought it was kissing him too. He talked to it, held it.”

Essentially, he worshipped the statue he made, preferring inanimate object to a woman (anyone thinking this is eerily like AI sex-bots?). During the festival for Venus, he asks for the statue to turned into flesh. Unfortunately, Venus grants his wish and gives Galatea (the statue) life. The poem ends with Galatea (again, whose name is not mentioned in the entirety of the poem) and Pygmalion (whose name is mentioned in the very title of the poem) marrying and having Paphos (there is some discord on Paphos’s sex).

Where does Madeline Miller deviate? What makes her work a reclamation?

Miller gives the statue-made-woman back her name. Miller gives Galatea memories. She gives her agency. In the short story, Miller does not shy away from what Pygmalion really does to Galatea – he rapes her, repeatedly. After Galatea has Paphos and her body is no longer as “desirable” as Pygmalion would like, Pygmalion locks her away and only sees her when he is in need of sex. Galatea describes the sex as performative, especially on her part. She must say specific lines before Pygmalion rapes her. In the end, Galatea is able to escape her prison and saves herself, her daughter, and the next statue Pygmalion is working on from a life of objectification and imprisonment. Galatea embraces Pygmalion in the ocean, then become stone once more, ending both their lives.

One way that Miller contrasts greatly with Ovid’s work is that Miller does not use any physical description for Galatea. In Ovid’s poem, Ovid focuses on the whiteness, the appearance of the “purity” of Galatea’s skin.

He talked to it, held it, imagined his fingers sinking into the limbs he was touching, frightened of bruising those pure white arms as he gripped them tight.
Lines 255-258

He successfully carved an amazingly skillful statue in ivory, white as snow, an image of perfect feminine beauty and fell in love with his creation.
Line 249

At the poem’s beginning (the poem starts at line 240 and extends to line 300), Ovid equates whiteness, or the appearance of whiteness, to femininity. Miller changes this by avoiding almost all descriptions of Galatea. The only physical descriptions of her are the faint silver lines where her belly stretched during her pregnancy, her “swollen” feet, and “I was slow and fat from a year of lying in bed”. Miller’s descriptions refreshing as they are hardly ever used to describe a woman in media, for fear that they will be seen as “unattractive” and “unfeminine” regardless of if they are real depictions of a cis-woman’s body after pregnancy.

Apart from this fleeting description, Galatea has no other physical identifiers. By doing this, Miller is proving multiple points:

Physical description does not need to be present in a story to tell a story.
Ovid described Galatea as “an image of feminine beauty.” Beauty is subjective to everyone. By avoiding description, Miller gives her character the unique ability to be relatable and appear different to everyone.
There is no ideal femininity.

The only moment of beauty described is when Galatea describes others’ reactions to her:

Everyone looks at me because I was the most beautiful woman in the town. I don’t say this to boast because there is nothing to boast of. It was nothing I did myself.
page 12, Galatea by Madeline Miller

In identifying this, Galatea is dispelling pretty privilege. Pretty privilege is the idea that individuals meeting societal beauty standards are more likely to have economic, social, and political advantages than those who do not fit society’s beauty ideals. People who fit into socially dictated beauty standard are often seen as more virtuous, worthy, and hard-working. Although this may be the case for some individuals, I’d argue that it is not the case for most.

More often than not, women who have the luck of fitting into a specific beauty standard are objectified within socioeconomic workspaces and are often ostracized by other women colleagues or friends for their appearance. In Galatea’s case, she is pointing out that her beauty was no moral virtue or reason to boast, as she did nothing to accomplish it. She is dispelling the correlation the town has about virtue and beauty while addressing the “privilege” that comes with it.

The main difference between Ovid’s retelling and Miller’s retelling is the perspective. Ovid chooses to write from Pygmalion’s viewpoint, focusing on the passion Pygmalion felt in his creation and romanticizing it. If Galatea were a woman, not a statue, at any point in the following description, Pygmalion’s actions would be considered sexual assault by today’s standards.

Pygmalion fondled that longed-for body again and again as he gently stroked and explored.
Line 291, Book 10, Metamorphoses

By Ovid describing Pygmalion’s fondling for almost fifty lines of poetry, he is romanticizing assault.

Miller tells the story from Galatea’s perspective. Galatea is locked in a sick home by Pyglmalion because she no longer fits what he deemed as beautiful. Galatea’s placement in a sick home plays a few roles:

The sick home acts as a secondary prison. Not only Pygmalion has held her prisoner, but he also can ask for doctors and nurses to hold her prisoner as well. This draws light to a common occurrence through history: husbands locking their wives in psychiatric wards when convenient for them.
The nurse, Chloe, aids the doctor and indirectly aids Pygmalion in controlling Galatea.
Chloe has internalized misogyny. When Galatea approaches her regarding her health and life, Chloe disbelieves her – a common occurrence in the medical field even today.
The doctor and nurse characters are a metaphor for society. For, often, it is not just a boyfriend, husband, or partner holding a woman back from her dreams and desires, but societal constraints as well.

“That’s enough,” he said, in that voice that meant he was going to send for the tea. The tea is the thing they give me when I won’t lie back, and I hate it, for they sit beside me until I drink it all, and then my head aches and my tongue hurts and I piss the bed.
Page 5, Galatea by Madeline Miller

Miller depicts Pygmalion as he is — a man fed up with women and expects a passive object instead of a person.

Would it have not been easier to marry a girl from the town? I asked. Those sluts, he said, I would not have them.
Page 5, Galatea by Madeline Miller

I don’t think my husband expected me to be able to talk. But it does seem foolish that he didn’t think it through; how could I not both live and still be a statue? I have only been born for eleven years, and even I know that.
Pages 10-11, Galatea by Madeline Miller

Throughout the text, in Ovid’s poem and Miller’s short story, Pygmalion is obsessed with ideas of purity, virginity, and control. He wants to possess Galatea, even to the detriment of his child, Paphos. Miller takes Ovid’s need for dominance further, playing on beauty standards — hairless, thin, youthful, essentially a child.

“Ah!” I closed my eyes. “I wish I could see it, darling. What is it of?”

“A girl.”

“It will be beautiful,” I said. “Is she for one of the men in town?”

“No,” he said. “I’m tired of those. This one is for myself.”

“How wonderful,” I said. “I hope I may see it when you are finished.”

“Maybe,” he said…

“How old is the girl?” I asked.

“Ten,” he said.

I expected him to say, “young.” When I had once asked him how old he meant for me to be, he had said, “A virgin.”

Pages 7-8, Galatea by Madeline Miller

I conceived that very first time, a moment after I was born.
Page 11, Galatea by Madeline Miller

Essentially, Pygmalion sees women and girls as objects for his personal gratification. By including this description, Miller is playing on Pygmalion’s (and some men’s) need for control of his partner. Pygmalion wants women to blush and to have shame for their desires for him. Ovid wrote Pygmalion with the same sentiments. A “fallen” woman, an “impure” woman, does not blush with shame during intercourse.

Then after these harlots has lost all shame, and the blood no longer ran to their cheeks but congealed as hard as their natures.
Line 240, Book 10, Metamorphoses

Galatea, innocent and newly born, blushes as Pygmalion touches her for the hundredth time. Ovid romanticizes “shame,” blushing, and purity in women.

She felt his kisses and blushed; then timidly raised her eyes to the light and saw her lover against the sky.
Line 295, Book 10, Metamorphoses

How does this make Pygmalion an incel?

Incels, or involuntary celibates, are heterosexual men who blame women for their lack of success in romantic/sexual relationships. Their beliefs are largely upheld by a self-righteous entitlement. In modern times, this self-righteousness is founded in misinformation about evolutionary biology and psychology.

In ancient Rome, although women did have rights to divorce, keep their dowry, etc., they were not allowed to manage their estate or affairs. Their roles were largely relegated to the home and only a few upper-class women had the luxury to re-draw gendered lines. Although Metamorphoses was written by a Roman poet, the myth itself reflects Greek misogyny.

Ancient Greece saw women as secondary. Women were deemed inferior in everything but their ability to create life. Greeks went so far as to say that women were “incapable of making important decisions”. Women were told to be faithful and were married at a young age (roughly 14 years old). Husbands could seek pleasure with sex workers while wives could not speak with any man who was not a relative.

Pygmalion would be a man of the times if it were not his disdain and hatred for sex workers. He wanted a “virgin” over and over again and made a statue of a ten-year-old girl. Pederasty was not uncommon in Ancient Greece, just as long as the girl-child remained a “virgin”. By first making Galatea then a ten-year-old child, Pygmalion reveals that he does not only seek sexual gratification, but domination.

Like an incel, Pygmalion blames “sluts” for his lack of success in intimate relationships.

Here are some common characteristics within the manosphere:

Characteristic	Metamorphoses by Ovid	Galatea by Madeline Miller
Misogyny	X	X
Racism	X	X
Sexual objectification	X	X
Sense of sexual entitlement	X	X
Self-pity	X	X
Hostility		X

**The table says it all so I’ll just leave it here***

How does Miller’s Galatea hold up to the Bechdel-Wallace test?

Galatea barely passed the Bechdel-Wallace test. Although Galatea has conversations with the nurse, she is only referred to as “the nurse” by Galatea. It is not until the doctor states the nurse’s name that the story passes. Additionally, Pygmalion keeps her social realm small, leading to more conversations with men than women. Despite this, Galatea passes.

Number of…	Amount
Conversations with a woman/girl	3
Conversations with a man	7
Conversations about a man	3
Times Galatea thinks of/discusses pregnancy	3
Times Galatea apologizes	3

To determine whether Galatea passes other tests, her motives must be explored. Throughout Miller’s short story, Galatea describes her life the past eleven years and her struggle to find freedom (away from Pygmalion) with her daughter Paphos.

Test	Pass	Fail
Bechdel-Wallace Test	X
POC Bechdel Test		X
DuVernay Test		X
Native Bechdel Test		X
Mako Mori Test	X
Raleigh Becket Test		X

Because Madeline Miller chooses not to describe Galatea’s appearance, she leaves it to the reader to determine her description; thus, it is up to the reader to decide whether Galatea passes the POC!Bechdel Test, the DuVernay Test, or and the Native Bechdel Test.

Galatea slightly passes the Mako Mori test in that she develops independently from Pygmalion. She wants to be free of Pygmalion and save her daughter Paphos. After a failed runaway attempt, she does what she can to ensure her and her daughter’s freedom. She develops her own sense of self despite Pygmalion’s abuse and control. It is within her daily rebellion that she establishes her will.

Galatea does not pass the Raleigh Becket test because Pygmalion is obsessed with keeping control of his wife (Galatea) and his daughter. He resents his daughter, for both her birth and Galatea’s love for her, as if he had no part in her creation. He crafts a statue of a girl-child to replace Galatea because he no longer find her, or her devotion to Paphos, attractive.

Pygmalion’s sexual objectification of Galatea and his obsession mean failure for the Raleigh Becket test.

Test Failures

Although there were undoubtedly People of Color in Ancient Greece and Rome, they were not described or mentioned in Galatea from what I could surmise. Miller largely does not describe anyone’s appearance as it is extraneous to the story itself.

Would I read Galatea again?

Absolutely! There are more themes and social commentary than I had time to list within this post. To research for this post and develop my theories further, I turned to the following sources:

A.R. Showler

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Galatea v. Pygmalion – the Original Incel