Beyond the Femme Fatale: The Mythical Pandora as Cathartic, Transformative Force
In: Illuminating the Dark Side: Evil, Women and the FeminineSearch for other papers by Maree Macmillan in
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The Pandora myth lies at the very heart of our cultural self-definition. The phrase ‘Pandora’s box’ is commonly used to denote any form of multiple/uncontrolled disaster, continually reinscribing, at least at the unconscious level, the idea of femininity - and of female sexuality in particular - as alluring and desirable, but also dangerous, irrational, uncontrolled and chaotic, the source of all the world’s ills. Of the myriad of textual and artistic manifestations of Pandora since her inception, those that portray her as femme fatale have received the most attention; the fact that Pandora’s box also offers positive potential in the form of hope, has largely been neglected. This paper reports on a study that re-examines the received reading of the Pandora myth, to propose an idea of Pandora that is much more complex and multi-faceted than her traditional casting as early femme fatale. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality and Judith Butler’s concept of identity and gender as performatively constructed, multiple and even ‘contradictory’, it interrogates a cluster of interconnected twentieth century works drawn mainly from the cinema, all of which feature a Pandora figure who challenges the derogatory stereotype perpetuated by conventional interpretations of the myth. The study, by incorporating the positive possibilities offered by the hope in Pandora’s box, demonstrates that Pandora cannot be dismissed merely as a harbinger of unmitigated disaster; rather, Pandora’s ‘chaos’, through exceeding her traditional framing as femme fatale, acts as a cathartic, transformative force, a source of energy with the potential for both good and evil. I argue that thus, Pandora’s box does not necessarily signify death and destruction, but can also act as a creative, life-affirming force that can be productive, generative and even redemptive.