lilith’s legacy: mythmaking & the female identity
During the fall quarter of 2022, I was able to take a class called ENGL192SC: Speculations in Color. My previous exposure to science fiction and speculative fiction was little to none, even during my time as a Creative Writing major at UCR. I especially appreciated that we read texts only from writers of color that spanned different cultural and historical backgrounds, as the class texts helped me broaden my own personal research. Our final assignment was to write an abstract and annotated bibliography from syllabus texts that we found particular interest in, and the final product of my assignment is showcased below.
ABSTRACT TITLE
Lilith’s Legacy: A New Era of Redefining, Reconstructing, and Reevaluating the Female Identity Through Mythmaking
ABSTRACT
Our male dominated society has historically viewed the mythical female figure as a blight and the reason for mankind’s downfall. This mentality has led patriarchal societies to classify women under labels and tropes intended to organize and subordinate them. From these oppressive classifications, a different category of mythical female figures is arising, signifying a new era: The Lilith Legacy. Recognized by scholars such as Michele Osherow, the myth of Lilith within literature “... presents a new feminine image, one reflecting a diversification of women’s roles in contemporary culture” (Osherow 68). The mythical figure of Lilith has expressed itself through a variety of stories aside from her origin in Jewish mythology: the old Aztec legend of La Llorona, the timeless Greek tragedy of Medusa, the tales of the White Lady in the Philippine provinces. However, within the genre of speculative fiction, I choose to focus on the works of Nalo Hopkinson and Carolynn Dunn, two authors that present female main characters that deconstruct the need for outside opinions. Within The Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson introduces us to the adventures of Tan-Tan, a girl whose journey to womanhood is riddled with conflict, loss, and the discovery of the truth as she fights for her life and her own self-identity. Hopkinson’s incorporation of Caribbean culture within the novel is essential to Tan-Tan’s reclamation of her self-identity, specifically through the figure of the Robber Queen, a traditional Carnival character that provides Tan-Tan with inspiration in the face of adversity. Similarly, Carolyn Dunn focuses several of her works on the figure of Deer Woman, a Native American spirit that is the spotlight for several stories in native cultural mythology. As detailed in one of her works, Deer Woman and the Living Myth of Dreamtime, Dunn explains Deer Woman as a spirit intended to teach future generations by revealing truths through “morality narratives”, making commentary on themes such as marriage, sexuality, family life, and the reconstruction of femininity through the myth itself. After close engagement with both texts, I have observed similar characteristics between Tan-Tan (as the Robber Queen) and Deer Woman, drawing the conclusion that mythmaking is a crucial component to the female identity, as well as to the reevaluation of it. Tan-Tan’s journey to liberate herself from misrepresented identities imposed on her by others aligns with Deer Woman’s stories of courtship practices, family life, and marriage. Both works emphasize the importance of mythmaking to passing on stories of trauma, preserving culture for the safety of future generations, and constructing a new, diverse, overarching identity that will hopefully redefine the perceptions that society has surrounding female figures.
Annotated Bibliography
Acka, Catherine, and Ali Gunes. "Male Myth-Making: The Origins of Feminism." ResearchGate, Jan. 2009.
This study done by Catherine Acka and Ali Gunes outlines the initial ideas and stories that were produced as a result of the male lens, also known as male myth-making. Acka and Gunes explain the origins of these thoughts and how they impact our view of women in society today, demonstrating the misrepresentation of female identities within our society and why it is important for novels like Midnight Robber to exist.
Dunn, Carolyn. "Deer Woman and the Living Myth of Dreamtime." JoMA Archives: Nonfiction, 2003.
In Deer Woman and the Living Myth of Dreamtime, Carolyn Dunn explains the significance of the mythical figure, Deer Woman, to Native American culture. In her explanation, Dunn tells the reader how Deer Woman's figure symbolizes larger themes of family and marriage, and emphasizes that Deer Woman's identity is one of the most crucial examples of mythmaking and how it can preserve culture and empower reality.
Gunes , Ali. From Self-Sacrifice to Self-Awareness: A View of the New Woman in Virginia Woolf's Night and Day. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/597735.
This study by Ali Gunes outlines the public and private perceptions of women and men in society based on different constructions. Using Virginia Woolf’s work, Gunes outlines the preexisting conversations of expectation of women and men and gives insight into a “new” woman that reshapes her own identity to one that doesn’t conform to society’s standards. This research is significant in constructing aspects of the female identity as portrayed in literature.
Hopkinson, Nalo. Midnight Robber. Grand Central Publishing, 2012.
Midnight Robber is a speculative fiction novel in which Nalo Hopkinson utilizes a female main character to comment on important themes like the female identity, the patriarchy, and the trauma that is created from the relationship between the two. Nalo Hopkinson’s novel details these themes as the main character, Tan-Tan, exhibits traits and identities throughout the novel that emphasize the importance of mythmaking to the female identity and survival.
Osherow, Michele. “The Dawn of a New Lilith: Revisionary Mythmaking in Women's Science Fiction.” NWSA Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, 2000, pp. 68–83., https://doi.org/10.2979/nws.2000.12.1.68.
Michele Osherow describes the literary figure of “Lilith”, who threatens male protagonists as well as societal standards as a female figure that reconstructs her own identity. The idea of the figure of Lilith in the genre of science fiction broadens the way that we can approach femininity and the female identity, which both Hopkinson and Dunn strive to do in their literary work in relation to mythmaking.
