by Mila Long
Tales as old as time carry unimaginable influence. Stories that influence every waking breath of the modern literary era are often riddled with questions and misinterpretations. The quintessential male hero, is pitted as the ultimate warrior, strong of mind and heart and body. These characters only seem to strengthen in time, setting in stone their influence over our world and our words. However, the female characters disappear and are altered or set in stone as monstrous, weak, or docile. New translations of classical literature can give room to new interpretations, or clearer visions of what the original work showed, and yet these new translations chose over and over again to keep the female characters as less than the male ones. The complex and clever queen is reduced to a dutiful wife. The strong and mighty are simply discussed as a monstrous hag. This line of new and old becomes blurred as we chose to repeatedly speak of these women in such a diminishing fashion when it would not be against the essence or truth of the story to alter them. The translations of old classics that have carried their stories and influences into the modern era must for the future of complex and equal literature be open to interpretation and clarification.
In Beowulf, Grendel's Mother is described as a mighty mare wife or a monstrous hell-bride. These three words influence the reader from the very beginning of her introduction into the story line. It establishes three things: her power, her morals, and her gender. The old English term used to characterize Grendel's Mother is the same term used to characterize Beowulf’s strength, and through their extremely close battle it is shown that this term is more than accurate. Yet still, translators chose to use one of the myriad of other translations like describing her as a monstrous hag that could be used for the same word, often with more negative connotations, when Beowulf is still described as mighty. It immediately lowers her power from the audience's perspective. It also loses any sympathetic nature that can be applied to her despite the multiple losses she takes throughout the poem, such as her son who is killed by Beowulf and was all she had. Her and her son were simply two inhuman creatures ousted from the world at large. Once Grendel is dead, his claws are displayed like a trophy. A trophy of the death of the only person who ever had the possibility of understanding her. When the story is read, she is horrible in every word choice despite the intense power and issues she is clearly shown to have. Some modern translations have rectified this, however it is few and far between. Grendel's mother doesn’t even get her own name. She is forever defined by someone else, a man. The extremity in which female characters are defined as monsters, yet still limited in their power, leads characters to be shown as inherently worse than male counterparts or opposites.
In The Odyssey, Penelope is a dutiful and loyal wife or a rebellious and clever Queen of Ithaca. Penelope is Odysseus's wife who, while remaining in Ithaca, has to fight off suitors who want her hand in marriage as they believe Odysseus to be dead. She tells the suitors when she finishes weaving, she will marry one of them, but she takes apart the shroud she sews every night so she doesn’t have to marry a suitor. The interpretation of her central act, of her weaving, severely influences how audiences and the world views her character. An intensely interesting character, Penelope states that she will marry a new man once she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus’s father. However, every night, she unravels the day's work. This act can be interpreted in so many styles. Is she a wife knowing that her life should be for the man across the sea for 20 years? Is she cunning, wishing only to scheme quietly against the men who believe they can take so much power from her? Is she a hopeful woman wishing and praying that her husband will get home safe? Is she a rebellious and intelligent queen understanding that she is unable to fight in public due to the time period and social norms expected of her? Is she all of this? Her state as a complex female figure often confuses the audiences, forcing them to pick one interpretation or another. Instead, most translations often choose to center their analysis around Odysseus, not Penelope herself. This ultimately disregards an intensely interesting activity to be done by a woman of that time period, especially one who is not a god. The motivation and interpretation change throughout the versions of the Odyssey, but every change even one word influences the outlook on Penelope. Reducing a complex female character to a one dimensional one removes the interest and power carried in such fascinating storylines.
In Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, Lara and Tonya can be viewed only as catalysts to the male characters in the story due to translation choices. However, they both work to serve as incredibly important characters in the central conflict of the novel. Tonya is removed in the novel to be exiled, and seems to believe that she should not be mad for her husband's blatant cheating due to some of the translations of her letter which lead to her commending Lara for her husband. She can be seen as a push over and even unimportant, however Tonya is an incredibly brave woman. All of this is merely in subtext, which causes translations to fluctuate from sticking exactly to the work or expanding to provide context. Translations chose to make her merely an attachment of her child, despite the main challenge of the translation being to keep even slight faithfulness to the syntax. Lara, however, becomes only an attachment to another character, Yury. She is an incredibly important person and character who works to propel various essential side plots, such as that of consent and of the people left at home during the war. Even when Yury must leave for his safety, the description of her letting him go changes her character from a dutiful lover to a strong woman who must do what she has to for her family. Doctor Zhivago is a work of passion and of large scale battles between ideologies that have set the stage of world history for modern readers. Restricting the interest to the male characters removes vitally important side plots and is ultimately regretful to the vision of Boris Pasternak.
It is time to thoroughly analyze the stories of women throughout the classics. Classics are history, reflecting the society of the times they are written in. Every word leaks bias and opinion and influence that future generations will see. As such, how do we want future generations to view us? Will we merely be figureheads of a misogynistic norm to reduce and lessen female stories? Will they be the exact same as us, still carrying antiquated interpretations of stories that reach far beyond simply literature? Literature affects the world. This is a fact proven in every era and every change. Literature portrays the world as it is but also as we wish it could be. Literature spearheads new beliefs and systems of thought, it portrays opinion and disagreement, and ultimately it shows hope and difference. Literature is immortal, so is this really how our time wants to be seen forever?
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