Myths
The popular meaning of the word “myth” is similar to “lie.”This is not the meaning understood by anthropologists, who posit that myths are the stories told by a culture which express its fundamental beliefs. In the excerpt from Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, she examines two basic myths of Western European culture, the Judeo-Christian creation myth of Eden and the Greek myth of Pandora. Both of these myths blame women for whatever is wrong in the world. Both blame women for their curiosity and for asserting what little power allowed them.
“Two Words,”by Isabel Allende, as well as “Of Mist, Grass, and Sand,” by Vonda McIntyre, are contemporary re-tellings of these and other ancient legends. In both, we see a woman in a new role, one we haven’t read about: woman as possible sorceress. There are women like Belisa and Snake in legends throughout history in all cultures. Often patriarchal culture has branded them as evil – an example being Morgan La Fay in the Arthurian legends, who is thought by many scholars to be based on an ancient Celtic goddess, demonized after the coming of Christianity. As late as the 17th and 18th centuries, women suspected of witchcraft--that is, of having undue power – underwent torture and death.
Both stories are set in timeless unforgiving desert land where humans must struggle to survive, a fitting metaphor for life itself. Both women travel this land-- one selling words, the other healing the sick.
“Two Words” by Isabelle Allende
Like Taylor and Jackal, Belisa Crepusculario has named herself (“Belisa” is an anagram of “Isabel”; a crepuscular animal is one that is active at twilight or dawn – like the cat). Belisa has endured great tribulation, she is tough: on her journey away from death and destruction, she has “no strength to waste in acts of compassion.” She faces life without fear. She embodies another theme that arises whenever women’s history is discussed, the importance of literacy and language.
Semanticists tell us that words are symbols, arbitrary constructs first formulated to symbolize the things of the material world. The word is a symbol of the thing; it is not the thing itself, but human beings tend to forget that fact. There are many times when we react to the word as if it were the thing, and not only in our fear of a threat or anger over an obscene insult.
Many rituals depend on this reaction; certain words become powerful if people give them power: Catholics believe the priest’s words spoken over the bread and wine change them into the body and blood of Christ. Believers in magic are said to have died from knowing that there are spells cast against them – not because of the spell’s efficacy but because of their belief in the power of the words. The belief in words as in themselves powerful is an ancient one.
Words here are not the symbols of things, they are themselves things. Belisa’s family is “so poor they did not even have names to give their children.” Isabel is attracted to words because they “make their way in the world without a master.” Magic realism, as its name implies, blends elements of realistic fiction and fantasy. Certainly, no one in our real world could make a living selling words, not the literal way Belisa does it. For these words are her own creations: she has thrown away her dictionary “because it was not her intention to defraud her customers with packaged words.”
Words are truly magic in this story. Some of the words she sells are similar to spells, like the “secret word to drive away melancholy” or the two secret words she gives the Colonel. She uses her words to fend off El Mulato, whose machismo represents the dark side of masculinity, contrasting with the more gentle demeanor of the Colonel, who, weary of his career as a bandit, has a voice “as soft and well modulated as a professor’s”(215). In this story, words virtually end sexism, subdue an evil violent man, and bring love and rightfully gained power to a good man. Literacy here conquers male violence and rage, and joins with the enlightened leadership of a gentle man subdued by his overwhelming attraction to a strong woman.
El Mulato brings Belisa once again to the Colonel because he is obsessed by the two words she has given him:
"'I brought this witch here so you can give her back her words, Colonel,’ El Mulato said, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the woman's head. ‘And then she can give you back your manhood.’"
Belisa has enchanted the Colonel, not as a sorceress but in the way of sexual attraction:
“The Colonel and Belisa Crepusculario stared at each other, measuring one another from a distance. The men knew then that their leader would never undo the witchcraft of those accursed words, because the whole world could see the voracious-puma eyes soften as the woman walked to him and took his hand in hers."
Pandora was given to Epithemeus with a warning to beware of gifts from the gods. In this story, though El Mulato may warn, the Colonel has the intelligence not to scorn this gift: Belisa’s curiosity about language and its uses, her opening of the box of knowledge, does not bring about unending misery but opens the way to reconciliation and understanding.
“Of Mist, Grass, and Sand” by Vonda McIntyre
Snakes have had a bad reputation for a long time. Perhaps it is their utter alienness from what we perceive as human, “the gaze of lidless eyes,” as McIntyre describes it.
“Of Mist, Grass, and Sand” was first written as a novela. McIntyre then expanded it into the novel Dream Snake(1978), which, following the first chapter in which Grass is killed, traces Snake’s quest for another dream snake in what is possibly a post-nuclear-holocaust earth. She is a healer, possessing the ability through the healing powers of her snakes, to cure grave illness. All we know of her is that she has been trained at a “station” and that her teachers gave her the name of Snake. Bitten repeatedly as part of her training, she cannot now be killed by snakebite: “She held out her hand so he could see the white scars of slashes and punctures . . . .’It's a part of our preparation,' she said. 'We work with many kinds of serpents, so we must be immune to as many as possible.’"
In the Eden myth, the deity forbade knowledge which was offered to Eve by Satan in the guise of a snake. Here too snakes have power, but a woman does not yield to temptation in order to gain the knowledge and there is no Fall, no exile from Paradise. Instead she has power over the snakes -- “Ah, thou. Furious creature. Lie down; 'tis time for thee to earn thy dinner’” -- while at the same time she treats them with love and respect: “When the serpents missed their regular meal, Snake began a fast as well.” It is other human beings whom she cannot trust.
She has come across the desert, a six days’ journey, to a harsh land at its edge.The people who live here “taught themselves to resist a difficult land by refusing to cry, refusing to mourn, refusing to laugh. They denied themselves grief, and allowed themselves little joy, but they survived.” They are also distrustful in the extreme, feeling it is “unwise to speak our names to strangers." They cannot or will not cry, perhaps fearing emotional vulnerability. Snake does not understand why this is so and reacts sternly to Arevin’s refusal to give her his name: "If you consider me a witch you should not have asked my aid. I know no magic, and I claim none."
Arevin replies: "It's not a superstition […] Not as you might think. We're not afraid of being bewitched [. …] Perhaps it's the betrayal of friendship we fear. That is a very painful thing."
His people, like Belisa’s, believe words have power, so much so that they do not tell their names to anyone unless they are close, echoing the belief of many primitive peoples.
Snake has come to heal Stavin, a child with a tumor, who has a “child's delight in knowledge” and does not fear the dream snake, Grass, who sleeps on his pillow to give him comfort. But old adult prejudices run deep: “they saw his fangs and they didn't know he could only give dreams and ease dying." The presence of the serpent scares Stavin’s parents, and they kill him. This devastates the healer Snake: "Such a small creature, who could only give pleasure and dreams."
She is angry at their lack of empathy not only for her but for small animals as well: "’Can any of you cry?’ she said. ‘Can any of you cry for me and my despair […] or for small things and their pain?’ She felt tears slip down her cheeks. They did not understand her; they were offended by her crying. They stood back, still afraid of her, but gathering themselves.”
When Arevin asks her why she can’t forgive them she replies : "I can't face their guilt. What they did was my fault, Arevin. I didn't understand them until too late."
Like Adam and Eve after the Fall, now Snake must pay the price: "I'm crippled […] Without Grass, if I can't heal a person, I cannot help at all. I must go home and face my teachers, and hope they'll forgive my stupidity. They seldom give the name I bear, but they gave it to me — and they'll be disappointed."
There are compensations: At the end of the story, Stavin is cured by Mist the cobra. Arevin has learned to call Snake by her name and to cry.
But Snake in the fashion of questing heroes must move on. Like the knights of old legends or the cowboys of the American west, the hero --this time it is a woman -- leaves and cannot promise to return: “He came toward her, and put his arms around her, and they stood embracing for a moment. When he raised his head, there were tears on his cheeks. ‘Please come back,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, please come back.’" That's an incredible role reversal!
Snake cannot promise: "’I will try [….] Next spring, when the winds stop, look for me. The spring after that, if I do not come, forget me. Wherever I am, if I live, I will forget you."