Miriam Kamil (Hamilton College)
(Content Warning: This paper contains detailed discussion of sexual violence and trauma)
Jonathan Shay famously analyzed Achilles’ indiscriminate slaughter of Trojans as a portrayal of the “berserker state” that afflicts combat fighters, while interpreting Odysseus’ fraught homecoming as complex post-traumatic stress (Shay 1994, 2002). Since then, scholars have applied Shay’s interdisciplinary approach not only to depictions of war trauma, but to other types of trauma as well, such as the physical and sexual abuse of women in Ovid’s Amores (Wise 2019). My paper furthers this interdisciplinary work by examining sexual violence in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where two vivid transformations demonstrate how modern conceptions of trauma and its benevolent counterpart, resilience, enhance our understanding of Ovid’s epic.
Both Io and Callisto are assaulted by Jupiter and transformed into animals, a cow and bear, respectively. Certain details of their transformations are striking in light of current research on the traumatic aftermath of sexual violence. For example, when the poet emphasizes their inability to speak (1.637, 2.483–484), we may understand a poetic reflection of clinical aphasia, frequently observed among survivors of sexual violence (Brison 2002: 114–115). This aphasia has neurological correlates, as language areas of the brain literally shut off during traumatic events (Van der Kolk 2014: 43–44). Not only muteness, but their animal forms indicate a hallmark effect of trauma: alienation. Trauma has been observed to sever the connection between the survivor and humanity, leaving her mentally isolated (Brison 2002: 40). While others have connected speechlessness with loss of community in Ovid’s poem (Natoli 2017: 33–79), these themes have not been united under the aegis of trauma response. Furthermore, Io’s recourse to scratching words into dirt exemplifies the therapeutic power of writing observed in trauma recovery (Van der Kolk 2014: 240–244).
Ovid’s landscape often embodies the internal experiences of his characters (Segal 1969). I argue that this poetic device is at play in these two episodes, as the environment takes on aspects of the survivor’s internal struggle. For example, the surrounding grove is “aware,” conscia, of Callisto’s assault (2.438). Embodying paralysis and muteness, the grove portrays “tonic immobility,” or involuntary freezing (Wise 2019: 73). Dissociation, the viewing of oneself from a distance, is another common experience among survivors (Brison 2002: 48); we might understand the personified grove as a fractured aspect of Callisto’s identity, maintaining awareness from afar. In the Io episode, Argus’ hundred unsleeping eyes evoke the “hyper-alertness” characteristic of PTSD, where a persistent fight-or-flight state precludes rest (Shay 1994: 173–174).
A longstanding scholarly debate concerns the inconsistent nature of transformation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which may expose a character’s inner nature, comprise a reward or punishment, or be simply random (Solodow 1988: 157–202). In this paper, I argue that certain of Ovid’s metamorphoses are described in such a way as to allegorize the psychological impacts of trauma resulting from sexual violence. With the aid of modern trauma theory, I am able to interpret such fantastical events as metamorphosis as well as such poetic devices as personification as metaphorical depictions of mental processes.