Gender Transformations in Apuleius
Anna McCullough
University of St Andrews
rumdiary@yahoo.com
The most obvious transformations in Apuleius' Metamorphoses are the magical ones: a man into an ass, or a woman into an owl. But on a level free of the supernatural, both men and women in the novel manipulate their gender for various purposes, and while some fall short of full gender transformations, others succeed in becoming the opposite sex. This paper, in examining such attempts, will show that while women are capable of initiating and completing gender transformations, men are not; their gender identities remain identifiably male, regardless of any display of effeminacy.
A "gender transformation," for the purposes of this paper, must be actively undertaken by the character, not imposed by an external agent. It must involve a mental or physical metamorphosis resulting from a decision to take on the role of the opposite sex. Finally, the text must specifically indicate a change of sex or identify maleness in women, and vice versa.
So, cross-dressers do not change their essentially male sex; Tlepolemus, when recounting his fictional escape from Roman soldiers, claims to have disguised himself by donning women's clothes (7.8) This was merely a temporary costume worn to escape capture, and discarded upon reaching safety; he did not attempt to change himself beyond outward appearance, or shed his virtus. Effeminates' display of feminine characteristics, is part of their nature as effeminate males; the beautiful slave-boy who dances on a staff as sinuously as a snake, or the eunuch priests who carry male symbols such as axes, occupy a problematic category because they are men acting like women, not men who become women.
Women, on the other hand, mostly eschew male dress and become men by taking
on virtus to replace their inferior female natures. Psyche decides to attack
Cupid in his sleep to determine his true nature (monster or divine?), and in
taking the razor in her hand, changes her sex [sexum mutatur] (5.22). Charite
first avenges her husband's death with masculis animis by gouging out his murderer's
eyes, then uses his sword to kill herself by plunging the sword into her breast,
exhaling her animam virilem upon dying (8.11-14). Such women are the most lauded
and virtuous in the Metamorphoses.