Symposium

- Passive characters who are victim to monstrous women

- ‘helpless victims of a sexual/political imbroglio’ (Greenberg, p.93.)

-‘All the men in this tragedy are sacrificial victims on the altar of some destructive female deity’ (Greenberg ,p.101)

-Evidence of weakness through love?

- Women’s monstrousness leads the reader to question the twins’ masculinity

- Double Bind which ‘reduces them to total passivity’ (Greenberg, p.91)

- Male order has been turned ‘topsy-turvy in the chaos of female usurpation’ (Greenberg, p.91)

- Antiochus fulfils duty by ascending to the throne and marrying Rodogune

- Séléucus sacrifices himself – ‘gloire’

- Patriarchy triumphs despite female interference?

• Mother-figure, prime maternal influence on Joas

• Midwife: saves Joas from bloody massacre

• Very protective of Joas: 'je crains pour le fils de mon malhereux Frere' (235)

• Maternal love as weakness? Wants best for Joas rather than whole nation

• Doesn't agree with what Joad wants to do Act 1 Scene 2, but says 'A vos sages conseils, Seigneur, je m'abandonne'(188) Obedient wife.

• Serves Yahweh, paternal god, patriarchy

Joad

• Paternal authority in the play, upholds hegemony
• Dominance over Joas and his submissive wife, Josabet
• Strong belief in the true faith, acts on behalf of Yahweh - most powerful paternal force
• More nurturing side shown by his raising of Joas is a means to an end

Gender Identity and moral development

• An effective ruler
• Threatening women
• Male paradigm

'La Mère Monstrueuse'

Maternity: Josabet

'Cléopatre...est très mechante'

• The Protagonist
• Aristotle's Poetics
• Obsession with power
• As a maternal figure
• 'Elle est à peu près dénuée de sentiment maternal' Scherer

Love and Tension

• The Mother
• The Lover
• The Women

Athalie and Regency

• Opposite of Josabet, does not conform to gender stereotype. Doolittle: a woman cannot be simultaneously feminine and ruler as 'the function of rulership belongs to men'; as Athalie is 'an effective ruler', she cannot be feminine. Athalie demonstrates character traits that would be desirable in a male ruler; as she's female, unnatural and subversive
• Crawford: 'Regencies circumvented the exclusion of women that many contemporaries deemed "natural"' and 'undermined the de facto exclusion of women from political power that accompanied Salic law'
• Seen as threatening, usurping natural order of primogeniture
• Athalie written 1691: regency of Anne d'Autriche, Frondes and instability

Passivity

Representations of masculinity

GENDER ROLES:

CONFORM OR DIE

In Racine’s 'Athalie' and Corneille’s 'Rodogune'

The Twins - Masculine Role

Mathan

• Parallel to Joad, priest of Baal
• Equally dedicated, displays willingness to kill a child for the sake of his god
• Baal - male god but often associated with femaleness
• Destined to fail, male dominance of Yahweh triumphs

- Brave

- Heroic

- Rational and Reasoning

- Aristocratic

- Strong rulers

- Produce a heir

- Active and Dominant

Joas

• Neither childish nor masculine
• Mature, speaks language of the temple
• Passivity, used as a political pawn in conflict between Joad and Athalie
• Evades gender stereotypes, and is destined to fail

Symposium

Characters who conform to traditional gender roles tend to succeed