Week 2 Story: A New Metamorphosis

Light burst through my eyes, and I felt warmth through my body. I felt pressure on my skin- wait, I have skin? Suddenly someone was kissing me, and as I opened my eyes I saw a slightly older man staring at me in rapture. I stuttered, “Who, who are you?” and he replied, “I am Pygmalion. I carved you out of ivory because the women of this Earth were flawed and did not please me. Venus gifted you to me.” I found his voice to be brusque, but underneath I saw a tenderness and love that I found startling. Just as a stream of questions were bubbling up, a shimmering veil appeared to the left of us and the most beautiful woman I have ever seen stepped out. By the way the man called Pygmalion fell to his knees I assumed this was Venus. She addressed the man, instructing him to leave her alone with me so she could orient me to this world.

            “Hello, darling, my name is Venus and I am the goddess of Love, Beauty, Fertility, and a good many other things. I have brought you here for this man Pygmalion, but not in the capacity he believes. This is a very important mission I have for you, and in return for your cooperation I will grant you the boon of a goddess. Does this interest you?”

            I nodded quietly in response, my mind whirling. She continued, “This man carved a statue of your likeness out of stone because he considers the women of this world flawed and beneath him. While this type of mindset is not uncommon for this era, I feel in this particular case something needs to be done. So I have brought you, a woman with the independence, fire, and education of a modern woman, to woo him. If he does not like the women of this world, then he will love you. Hopefully this will bring some respect and humility to his heart, particularly when he loses his love. In return, I will take you to the modern world and grant you a wish. The most important part of this plan is that you do not get emotionally involved, got it?”

            This plan seemed cruel, but if this Pygmalion was as chauvinistic and harsh as Venus said, maybe he deserved it. I certainly did not want to stay here with this old guy who did not value women forever. So the girl agreed to Venus’s plan, and laughed at the idea that she could ever fall in love with Pygmalion…

Ludwig Wilhelm Wichmann statue in Hermitage

Bibliography: Story source: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).

Author's Note: This story is based on Ovid's Metamorphosis, where Pygmalion carves a statue and falls in love with the likeness of a women who is then brought to life by Venus. They get married and live happily ever after. But as I was reading the story I was struck by the fact that the women never spoke, never thought, was never offered any kind of choice in the matter. In this version, I like giving the women in this tale a little more power. 

Reading Notes: Metamorphosis- Pygmalion

-Pygmalion seems to be awfully narcissistic. Seriously, there's not a SINGLE woman in the whole world who is good enough for him? What is so "offensive" about the female nature? Maybe no woman would have him because he's so arrogant so he had to make what sounds like the Ancient Greek version of a blow up doll.
-The prose describing how he feels about the statue is beautiful, but shallow. Of course, how deep can a love be for a statue? I think Pygmalion fell in love with the idea of a woman who looked exactly the way he wanted her to look and loved exactly what he wanted her to love. "Gifts that please girls", as if we all are brought to tears by polished rocks.
-I am disappointed in Venus in this story. I have always thought of her as an independent and empowered goddess, and in no way would I think she would grant this chauvinist's wish. However, maybe there are bigger powers at play than what we are getting in this story.
-Finally, I hate that when the statue finally gets turned into a real girl, of course she has no say in what goes on in her life. Maybe she doesn't want to marry this crazy guy who's obsessed with her? Maybe she doesn't want to have a baby immediately after gaining the ability to live. Would be nice to get her side of the story. I imagine it would be pretty disconcerting to be brought to life to begin with, but on top of that the first thing that is happening is that you are getting kissed and groped by a man. This story could be a sweet love story but only if the woman gets to have a part in this story other than the "beautiful ivory girl"

Even in this image she looks pretty peeved about the whole situation.
Image Information: Pygmalion priant Vénus d'animer sa statue by Jean-Baptiste Regnault.

Story source: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).

Reading Options

I am so excited to read such an eclectic group of stories this semester. Three units that really stuck out to me are:

1) Through the Looking Glass
I have always liked Alice in Wonderland but have never really explored Lewis Carroll's other novels. His writing has a darkness to it that contrasts quite nicely with he fairytale childlike world that he creates in his writing. I look forward to reading this story as an adult and seeing what it reveals to me.

Illustration by John Tensile

2) Arabian Nights

This is another relatively well known set of stories that I am very interested in delving deeper into. I have always been fascinated by this culture but know very little about this region of the world. I love Aladdin but I am sure I have been told only the Americanized, Disney version and it will be interesting to see the differences between that and the original version. 

3) Women Saints

I know very little about the saints in general and know literally nothing about any of the female saints so I thought these stories sounded really cool. I always like to read about females stepping outside of their prescribed roles and pushing the boundaries and I think we will see a lot of that in these stories

Assignments First Impressions

Since I have taken the India Epics class before some of these assignments are familiar, and I remember from that class really enjoying the comments on each other's blogs. They ended up being really constructive by the end of the semester and I was able to follow along and find favorite storybooks that I saw grow as the semester went along. I am also excited for the reading assignments as I mostly read dry science materials.
For the extra credit I am looking forward to the growth mindset and HEART extra credit options. I do not know much about these theories and would like to learn more.


Something that reminded me of the kinds of stories I think we will encounter in this class-
Lam-Ang, Philippine folklore hero, summoning animals as aide for an upcoming battle.
Source: Wikimedia

Growth Mindset

I have heard of the growth mindset before in some of the psychology classes that I have taken. I grew up with a fixed mindset. Fortunately, I have always done really well at school, and believed I had been “fixed” with an above-average intelligence. However, I experienced a lot of what that video talked about when I got to college. I never had to try in high school, I made excellent grades and received tons of awards without ever straining. When I got to college, that was not the case, and I had no idea how to study or handle the stress of classes that were challenging. I failed, and my grades dropped drastically. I almost ruined my chances of getting into medical school, and it’s because I had no idea how to deal with the challenges associated with failing in academics. I have adapted a growth mindset as my college career has gone on, and felt my intelligence has grown not only in the “hard” academics but in other areas of my life, such as emotionally, physically, musically, etc. It is exciting to me that there is not a ceiling to my intelligence, that even though I was blessed with a natural ability to excel at school I can still push myself to be even better and even more intelligent and aware.

This is me clinging to my dreams of being a doctor while failing physics freshman year.

Source: cheezburger

Introduction of a Rambling Medical Student

Hello! My name is Marielle Crowell and I am in my fifth year at OU now. I graduate in May (yay!) with a degree in Microbiology and Psychology and a minor in chemistry. I was recently accepted into OU Medical School (yay again!) so I will begin there next fall. I am SUPER excited to be done with my undergrad degree as it has been a long time coming. I actually took the India Epics course three whole years ago and have always planned on taking the mythology course and have finally found time in my schedule to fit it in. I linked my old storybook down below if anyone is interested! I really enjoyed that class and recommend it to anyone thinking about taking it. Let’s see... I will not tell you about any of my classes because they are all boring terrible science classes that make me want to cry. I used to have hobbies but really for the past three years my only hobby has been trying to get into medical school (joking but not really). I do like to cook, work out, and read when I have the time. Currently watching through all the harry potters again now that they are on HBOGo. I used to knit when I was younger and would really like to knit little hats for babies for the American Red Cross or something but so far my schedule does not allow time for that. Have recently taken up yoga but I think my downward dog is far too terrible for me to consider that a “hobby” yet. I have two part-time jobs, I work in a little boutique in the mall mostly for a clothing discount and then I also scribe for doctors in an emergency room in Midwest City. Scribing means I chart for them when we go into rooms and interview patients. It is overnight so that is hard but it is super relevant to what I want to do so I feel really lucky to have that position. I’m super excited for this class and really anything that doesn’t have the word cell or chemistry in it!

Retro Storybook: The Goddess's Safe Haven 

A random cute picture of me and my twin sister when we were little and my mother made us wear horrendous matching outfits and apparently sit on even more horrendous couches. But it was the 90's what can you do. That's me on the right. 

Photo cred to my grandfather who I remember was majorly PO'd that I insisted on having my baby in the picture.