Pygmalion. If there's one myth that's possessed my imagination, it's that one. Which reflects rather poorly on me, you'll have to admit, but there's nothing to be gained by hiding the fact from myself.
Anyway, Pygmalion is a sculptor who despises women and has sworn them off entirely. His reasons for this unfortunate character flaw are not specified–more than likely it's the kind of thing you'd expect, no doubt some physical inferiority or lack of manly strength and agency. He's a type the reader will be familiar enough with–with the exception that he really is an outstanding sculptor.
So I imagine he goes on for many years, sculpting away happily. Probably he produces a good many heroically nude statues of the gods and of Olympic athletes with small penises–the civilized nations of Hellas and the Italian peninsula having discerned that large ones indicate a barbarous sensuality and general stupidity of intellect. But eventually he creates a female statue he names Galatea.
And it's really only because he's such a brilliant sculptor that the awful thing occurs. A less dedicated artist, a less robust character, a less penetrating intelligence could never have produced a statue so perfectly proportioned, so gracefully formed, and so (frankly) excellent that the creator himself… well, he falls in love with his creation. No living woman could touch his heart, but this marble form of his own making, this marvel of the craft, this Galatea… he can't help loving her.
A little unfortunately, we'll all freely admit. Pygmalion does his best with the situation, though–changes Galatea's robes every day, whispers in her ear the way a man whispers to a living, human lover, and even takes her into his bed when he sleeps at night. Which is nice and all, but it really doesn't satisfy. The man who swore off all women has finally found love, and it's with a woman of stone.
And he truly does love her, for all his faults. And he truly does love only her.
To distraction, really. It gets so bad that he goes on a pilgrimage to the Temple of Venus, the goddess of love herself. And he asks the goddess to show favor to him by bringing his sculpture to life. And the goddess makes no sign, and the sculptor returns home with a heavy heart. Satisfied that he's done all a mortal man can do, but disappointed that when his lips kiss the beloved they kiss only plain smooth rock.
So when he gets home he sits at the feet of the statue. Wishing that when he held its cold hand it would respond with some warmth of its own. Wishing that the chest he'd sculpted so skillfully would rise and fall with its own breath of life. Wishing this cold object he'd created would become a woman capable of returning his love.
But what is this…? For just a moment, he thought he felt that hand in his responding with a warm touch of its own. But that can't be, things like that only happen in stories, Venus would never be so kind… so inconceivably kind… as to grant his wish.
But she was. The goddess answered Pygmalion's prayer–maybe just out of caprice, a pagan goddess must be allowed her little whims, after all. Likely as not Venus has heard every lovelorn tale from every petitioner more times than even an Olympian can count. At least Pygmalion has something new to alleviate the boredom.
Whatever the reason, Galatea's stony form relaxed into warm human flesh. The unliving statue became alive. And with hands trembling Pygmalion felt her hands squeeze his. And with tears in his eyes he found Galatea gazing back at him, smiling.
And what happens after that? Well, they all live happily ever after, the end.
Now, what does that old story have to do with us today? Or, let's be straightforward… why does this story touch me so deeply?
I've deliberately painted Pygmalion in a negative light here, because I see myself in him.
But let's give Pygmalion the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to read the myth as the male artist's attempt to conjure his idea of the perfect woman out of the raw material he's working with. But if we take the myth on its own terms we find a more complex situation at work.
First off, Pygmalion seems sincere in his dedication to his art. There's nothing in the story that suggests he ever really intended to create Galatea. And anyone with an art habit knows that you're not really in control of what you end up creating–you follow the work where it leads and whatever ends up coming from that, is what ends up coming from that. The artist can control and practice technique, but the place where the ideas come from remains veiled.
And you have to consider Pygmalion's general disdain for the feminine, which is a complex thing. The artist becomes an artist in order to combat some weakness in himself–the fact that he's so dedicated to creating is almost an indictment against his character. And the fact that he's also a principled misogynist points to the particular nature of his character flaw. This is not a strong man with a well-formed psyche living independently, this is a weak character taking to art as a means of escape. In artistic creation, Pygmalion is attempting to forge a zone of freedom removed from the overwhelming maternal presence.
Which you'll say isn't at all unusual–a woman can simply be a woman, while a man has to become a man.
So it's not that Pygmalion set out to create some feminine ideal–such a reading of the myth smacks of feminine narcissism. Quite the opposite, Pygmalion sets out to create himself, to impose a form on himself and his character through the strict discipline of the art. Only a reader who has decided in advance that everything men do must have a straightforward relation to women would assume that what Pygmalion does has anything to do with women.
Except for the minor detail that he's trying to free himself from those feminine influences he hates so much.
Which works for a while. He becomes a master in his art, gets recognized as a sculptor, etc. But the work has a logic of its own–Pygmalion eventually finds himself creating the very thing he's been repressing: the feminine ideal in the form of Galatea. Through the process of mastering the art, he eventually finds himself creating the most refined form of that fascinating femininity he's been striving to hold back.
It's crucial to remember here that what Pygmalion falls in love with is the product of his own labor. One feminist reading of the myth would accuse Pygmalion of creating an impossible mold, defining a role for the feminine and expecting a real-life woman to adjust herself to that role. What this reading gets wrong is that it does not take the myth literally enough–Pygmalion does not set out to create a template for a lovable woman. Pygmalion does not set out to fall in love with the image of a woman. All Pygmalion sets out to do is create a statue of a woman, and it is through his labor that he (involuntarily!) finds himself loving the image he has created.
This aspect of the myth gets covered over for us in modern times, where (yes, we'll use the Marxist term) the alienation of labor strips away the character of mine-ness from the product of labor. The craftsman's intimate feeling of identification with the products he produces is, for us, something limited to rare birds like artists and small business owners.
One could go very far with a reading like this–one could take it very far indeed by posing a simple question: what does Pygmalion fall in love with when he falls in love with Galatea?
I'd like to suggest that what Pygmalion falls in love with is the free process of artistic creation itself. What comes to life for him is not a human woman, not even "the woman of his dreams." Such a reading takes the myth far too literally, leaving out a truly mythical understanding. Of course the thing he falls in love with is symbolized as a properly receptive woman. How else would you express the feeling an artist has when the work is going well–where one is engaging in a pure form of play that seems to have a life of its own?
Pygmalion falls in love with his art and his art comes to life for him. The fact that Galatea happens to be a statue of a woman only matters only matters to the extent that she functions as a return of the repressed.
Some might say that reading the myth in this way cuts Galatea out of the matter entirely–a reading like this takes the flesh and blood woman at the end of the story and treats her as if she were still just a thing made of stone… or plastic. Or it ignores the importance of the excessive woman-hating Pygmalion displays at the beginning of the story.
Or to look at it from another angle–what is Pygmalion working on when he works on his art? And you can put a good face on it all you like, but basically he's working on the same thing in his art that any artist is: raw resentment of existence. Maybe what he finds so lovable in Galatea is the way she's utterly unlike any real woman.
There's a paradox in the heart of the myth, and it comes close to being the paradox of the artist's soul. Because there's a certain yearning the artist gives expression to when he creates the scripture, but at the same time the act of creating the sculpture deadens the yearning. Everything we express with pen and ink is in a certain sense already dead to us. Artistic creation allows a certain sense of distance from what hurts too keenly.
Pygmalion may be a conflicted and not particularly good man. But there's something he's trying to resolve through the creation of Galatea–he may not be able to say what it is, he may not be able to understand what it is. But he must know that all his woman-hating is a character flaw and a laughable sort of rebellion against life. Probably he sees these tendencies harming him and those around him–and maybe he wants to stop, or part of him wants to stop, if only he knew what that meant.
Because there's a real pain behind all that hate.
So maybe Pygmalion creates Galatea as a way of laying to rest all he wished a woman was. Or just to keep busy...
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