Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths

by Natalie Haynes

for the ancients, Pandora’s role as the ancestor of all women was far more important than her disputed role in opening the world to incessant evil. Even if, for Hesiod, these two amount to much the same thing.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Pandora’s role as our ancestor has been largely forgotten today. Instead, her Old Testament semi-equivalent has taken precedence in our collective consciousness. Just as Deucalion (the survivor of the Great Flood in Greek myth) has been largely forgotten while Noah and his ark sail cheerily to salvation, so Pandora has been approximated or replaced by Eve.

Unlike Eve, who at least gets a line or two of dialogue to explain herself, Pandora is (for all that she has been given a voice by Hermes) mute. Whatever motives we attribute to her are ours, and ours alone.

For more modern authors, it seems that murdering villains is fine, but raping their daughters must be overlooked. Of course, we might well feel that a classic children’s book is no place for rape: I don’t particularly disagree. But these myths are full of violence and we should at least ask why it is the violence against women that is removed in order to make our heroes uncomplicated adventurers.