A Woman's Role

Eurydice asserts more personal autonomy after she journeys from the world above to the underworld. In the world above, she tries to understand Orpheus' intuitive way of evaluating her inner world, memorizing his melodies when he asks, even though she does not understand their significance. In the underworld, she privileges her own way of understanding her inner world, through language, creating unconventional definitions for familiar words. However, the roles she defines for herself in the world above and the underworld are centered on emotional bonds with men: her husband, Orpheus (world above) and her father (underworld). Even her own wedding symbolizes the transition of her primary emotional bond; previously her father's daughter, she is now her husband's wife. The choices Eurydice makes while asserting her personal autonomy illustrate the theme that a woman's “self-definition” is often limited to the choice of deciding whether to...