The Apple of Discord

Eris, the Goddess of Discord, throws the apple into the hall of the gods, labeled kalliste, “to the fairest.” And so begin the arguments of Helen’s fidelity, Achilles’ hubris, and Odysseus’ loss. All of Western literature is beset first by discord, by imbalance, and how often the simple apple plays a major role!

The link between apple and beauty, between discord and balance, blurs: and the uncertainty is at its center.  Let me explain.

The traditional lessons found in the Greek myth are simple enough:  Discord causes trouble (a war in Troy, for instance), Pride does the same, as does Temptation.  Therefore we should distrust these.  I might diagram it this way:

 

 

Positive Traits	Negative Traits: Apple
Order	Discord
Humility	Pride
Law/Rules	Temptation (away from Law)
Male (Strength/Law)	Women (Beauty)

This last pairing is found in the “betrayal” of Helen for her beauty and how it is overcome in the Trojan War by the sword.

Interesting to note the Latin forms of “apple” (malum) and “evil” (malus). Perhaps merely a coincidence.

Looked at another way, we might add another level to our Apple:  earthly, material desire.  In the Old Testament, God warns Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge; Aphrodite bribes Paris with the prize of Helen; and Lancelot is torn from the Roundtable by the shame of his tryst with the queen.Thus we condemn an Eve, Helen, and Guinevere; we praise a Moses, Odysseus, and Arthur. One group creates disorder, corruption, and loss; the other restores it in mythological happy endings. All is well.

One could explore the obvious link here to women and the subsequent art which depicts women as temptresses, from Sibyls and sirens to succubae and Scheherazades. Similarly, we could draw interesting parallels to money, another earthly pleasure, and its similar role in literature.

But I’m less certain that the lessons are so simple.  In fact, this clean divide between Order and Apple-Villainy is even a bit dangerous.

The Apple, as a sphere, carries an entirely different meaning.  Spheres are totality, the universal wholeness.  In other words, the Apple is the very symbol which defies this artificial division; it encompasses by definition the entire chart above.  If I were to redraw it, it might look like this:

Totality of the Apple

Division of the World into Opposites	The Side of the World Excluded by this Division
Order	Discord
Humility	Pride
Law/Rules	Temptation (away from Law)
Male (Strength/Law)	Women (Beauty, kalliste)

In this way, Order and Goodness make themselves heroes of tales in an effort to defeat Chaos and Wickedness.  But the Apple rolls into the hall of the gods to remind us that there another story waits.

Here are our three tales again, re-envisioned with this piece of the mythological puzzle:

1. Eris, Greek Goddess of Discord, is first excluded from a great wedding (The Original Snub), which motivates her to remind us of the oversight with the Apple. And the wedding itself was hardly Harmonious (her opposite); it was a forced marriage.  Thus, the gods created a false sense of Harmony which inevitably called for its disruption, the totality which includes Discord, and creates the greatest Greek epic.
2. Eve herself is seduced by a discordant serpent in Eden, one of God’s creations somehow residing in the realm of perfect Order.  Her inevitable acceptance of it creates the Original Sin which propels the total drama of humankind, free will and faith.
3. Guinevere’s is a classic Fall and Redemption story. Lancelot comes to know that he is more than his male purity—he is, in fact, a creature of earthly desire.  And it is his failure to understand this—to wrestle it rather than accept it—which causes the land’s corruption and the necessity for Arthur (and Galahad) to restore it.  (As an added note, the island of Avalon—where Excalibur was forged and Arthur recovers from his wounds—is translated as “Isle of Apples”
4. And just for kicks, Snow White is seduced by an apple by the once-fairest queen, and Sleeping Beauty is cursed by a fairy who is not invited to her christening.

Okay, got it.  So what’s the point?  Who cares about mythology, anyway?  As we discuss in my literature classes, story gives us purpose.

Discord is not an evil but an inevitability, a necessity. From it comes change, the impetus to renew balance, and create a healthier society.  In every human and in every society, Discord lives. The natural cycle of mythology, of civilization, of life, is of disruption, change, and renewal.  If this were not true, we would have stagnation and ignorance.

The corruption of the Greek gods would never have been revealed, Arthur would still be living by the imperial sword alone, and humankind might reside forever in Eden—nice, but without knowledge or purpose. Ennui.

Learning, education, is our ongoing dialogue to move beyond ignorance; by necessity it means that there will be conflict—discord—as change takes root. Our efforts to stamp out minority views, conflicting reports, to keep order for the sake of Order, are mistakes: they are illusions of Order, false harmonies.

No status quo will ever change without contention.  And the Apple is thus the American ideal.

 

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Non-Western Civilizations?

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Steve,

I liked the examples you used in your argument but I noticed that they are all taken from Western cultural world-views or stories.  How does your Eve example change when you consider another equally valid version of the story – that of the Islamic Eve?  In the Qur’an, Adam and Eve share the blame equally for their transgression, and it is Adam who is both approached by Satan and censured by God directly for his actions, not Eve.  Thus, there is no burden passed on from Eve to mankind, no Original Sin. Eve, in fact, isn’t even mentioned by name in the Qur’an – she’s just “Adam’s wife”.  Still, it is the man, not the woman, taking most of the heat (Qur’anically) for what happened in Eden.

I don’t think this detracts at all from what you were saying, but for some reason that example jumped out at me.  As another aside, many non-Western cultures are much more collectivist than we are here in America, so harmony for harmony’s sake is often preferred over creating discord, no matter the subject. While we in the West might see such a view as a mistake or an illusion, it seems this may be just a reflection of our own values and psychological needs rather than a hard-and-fast truth.

Enough ramblings.  Great entry, per usual.  Glad you had the time to write!

Lizzy Kwicinski at 4/21/2008 10:33 PM

Re: Non-Western Civs

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Hi, Lizzy!

I agree with your points, and while I was less interested in pursuing the role of women in the story than the motif of discord, I think it’s worth adding that the pattern of Western archetypes is the obvious focus.  As we discuss in AP, New Historicists argue that power is a “strategic narrative,” that the dynamic by which some stories dominate and others are sublimated is a subject for discussion of its own.

Though the Islamic Eve is essentially “erased” from this particular pattern (and I would pause over the removal of her name), the Qur’an does not replace her role with a different one.  She does not, for instance, heroically caution Adam to reject Satan’s wishes; she is blamed equally.  Thus, her omission from singular blame does not subsequently reverse the pattern of blame nor the role of inevitable discord.

None of this takes away from your points of Western bias or Western needs for Truth.  Truth-seeking is the Western motive.  On the other hand, I wonder at the characterization of the East as a desire for harmony, or perhaps what our definition of harmony is.

Considering the Yin-Yang symbol as representative of totality, “rightness” is more akin to the balance of order/disorder, more like the marriage of harmony/discordance, male/female, light/dark, etc.  The Taoist, Buddhist or Hindi idea is not to reject discord and conflict, but to accept them as part of the whole.  Thus, a danger in our Western perception is to equate our signifier “harmony” with the Eastern “rightness.”

Therefore, to attach this to Discord, I think my efforts were to actually suggest that artificial and simplistic Western divisions (binary oppositions) are themselves misreadings of the myths, omitting the broader totalities of the story which include accepting the role of discord, a more Asian view, I think.