Reading Diary A: Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche

For this week, I chose to read the unit on Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche.  I’ve read about them in several books before, but I’d never actually read the original myth or story.  In retrospect, I mainly chose this unit because I have a fascination with Greek myths and prefer the layout of a story as opposed to the layout of a poem, as most Greek myths are written.  But who cares, it’s an awesome story that I loved reading!

I love stories with dynamic female characters.  People always rave about how there needs to be strong female characters, but I think dynamic ones are more important.  By this, I mean that she needs to show both strength and weakness, not just one or the other as most characters seem to.  Psyche, to me, is a dynamic female.  She has a strong character, which I could see in The Oracle of Apollo.  Psyche held her head high and comforted her parents as she walked to what she thought would be her death.  She was strong and faced the unknown with an appearance of confidence, even if she didn’t entirely feel it. 

However, she also had a weak character.  She didn’t trust her husband, despite the fact that he had done nothing to harm her or earn her distrust.  This became apparent in Fears and Doubts.  She fell for her sisters’ conniving ways, looking upon her husband so that he was forced to leave her, as he had warned her. In a way, this is a weakness that most people have.  Family is important, especially for many women.  They crave the comfort of companionship, and the only companion Psyche had was the presence of her husband at night.  It's no wonder that she fell for her sisters' schemes. 

After her husband left, she showed a unique combination of a strong and weak character.  In Psyche’s Despair, Psyche weakened to the point of acting on her wish for revenge.  But she showed strength in how she manipulated her sisters into bringing about their own demise.

I hope that as I write my own stories, I can write dynamic characters like this one.  All people have strengths and weaknesses, not just the men.  Women are not inherently weak and men are not inherently strong.  Both Psyche and Cupid proved this in the first section of reading in Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche. 

(Cupid and Psyche in the Louvre. Source: Flickr)