Week 4 Story: The New Girl in Town

Even though it was 2017, tradition was very important to the small town of Olympia, Oklahoma. All of the residents believed in a simple life and were very close with one another. Every year in the fall the Olympia County Fair brought the town closer together as they celebrated the town’s traditions. Like all county fairs there were numerous competitions like, Best Apple Pie, Biggest Pumpkin Grown, and the title for the town’s most beautiful girl Princess Olympia. Venus was born and raised in the town of Olympia and was adored by everyone. All of the boys in town seemed to worship at Venus’s feet. Venus always won the title of Princess Olympia even when she was a baby she beat all the other girls out. After winning every year for sixteen years she did not worry at all that her title could be taken, that was until the 2017 Olympia County Fair.

A new family moved into the town during the summer of that year. They were a very polite family with three daughters and seemed to fit in well with the veteran residents. While all of their daughters were soon adored in the town, the older two sisters could not match the cheery disposition, wisdom, and beauty of the youngest daughter Psyche. From the moment, anyone met Psyche they were smitten by her beauty and charm. All of the attention that she gathered from the other residents began to infuriate Venus. Venus also began to worry about her title for Princess Olympia. The jealousy inside Venus for Psyche made it clear to Venus that she would need to teach Psyche a lesson about respecting “town royalty”. So, Venus began to devise a plot to take Psyche down before the county fair.

While Psyche knew she was beautiful, she only knew that because that was the ONLY thing other people complimented her on or wanted to talk to her about. While other girls may have found this flattering, Psyche was beginning to hate her own beauty. She learned very young that beauty may attract others to you, but it did not keep them around for long. Anytime Psyche would become friends with someone, they could only handle being her friend for a month. The friends would always get tired of hearing everyone admire Psyche’s beauty and ignoring them. In school, the teachers never paid attention to her work but just accepted that it was perfect, just like her, never learning she had true intelligence. Psyche begged her parents to move to a new town hoping she could start a new life and be admired for her brains not just her beauty.  

Iconic picture of the Ferris Wheel at night at the Wilson County Fair (2013). Source: Flickr by Anthony Jones 

Authors Notes: This story is based off of Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche translated by Tony Kline. I chose to do my story over two of the experts; Psyche’s Beauty andthe Anger of Venus and The Oracle of Apollo.  In these stories, we are introduced to Psyche’s family and told about her beauty. We also learn about Venus and her jealousy over Psyche and that Venus devised a plan with Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a “wretched” man. We also learn about how Psyche was unhappy about her beauty because no one would ever want to marry her. I decided to change up Apuleius story by taking Psyche and Venus fight/jealousy into today’s world. I kept the same name for the main characters and the jealously over beauty because it is something that is still relevant today with girls. The county fair inspiration came from the state of the Oklahoma State Fair in a couple of days. I thought it would be easy to have a beauty contest in the fair and Venus would obviously expect to win it. I did not bring in Cupid yet because I wanted to develop Psyche personality individually before I brought in the “prince charming” man. I changed up Psyche character by making her more worried about wanting to have friends and being known for more than just her beauty but wisdom too. This can be relatable to numerous people who experience rejects growing up from friends or family. I am having some trouble trying to figure out what would be a good “plan of destruction” that Venus would try to get her brother Cupid to help execute. Which could be made into a later story to go along with this one. I hope you have enjoyed my story and would love to hear feedback and ideas!

Reading Notes: Reading B: Cupid and Psyche

For the part Reading B of Apuleius’s Cupidand Psyche stories we got to learn about the different task Venus gives Psyche to do (four all together). During each of the different task Psyche always receives help from other animals or objects, I think a very key aspect in each story. And in the last task she needs to accomplish in The Sleep of the Dead, Cupid comes to help her so she can complete the final task. During the stories Cupid just seemed to be moping in a room at his mother’s house, not helping his so called “love of his life”. You begin to worry that he is not that much in love with Psyche. The act of escaping and coming straight to her rescue restores your faith in their love for each other.  This is similar to a damsel in distress in most Disney princess movie where animals, other friends, and her prince charming all come in to help the princess. The final task is also similar to sleeping beauty because Psyche falls into a dead like slumber. However, this story is different since Psyche is woken but Cupid brushing off the “sleep” unlike Sleeping Beauty where Prince Charming kisses her to awake her. One aspect of the stories that needs to be kept is that Psyche is pregnant during most of the story, and then at the very end in The Wedding Feast, they name the baby girl “Pleasure”. Even though Psyche and Cupid’s love story ends happily, all is forgotten of Venus cruelty to Psyche. Even though she is a goddess, I think she should have to suffer some repercussions for her cruel actions against Psyche. Finally, like the start of the story we end with going back to the robbers in the cave scene. While this does not have much to do with the Psyche and Cupid love story it does lead into Apuleius’s Golden Ass translated by Tony Kline. The donkey, Lucius escapes with the kidnapped girl and they start on their trip to return her back home. The ending still leaves us with curiosity on if the girl will make it back home and if Lucius will be turned back into a human.

Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awoken by her Prince Charming. Source: Wikimedia Commons 

Reading Notes: Reading A: Cupid and Psyche

For my Week 4 reading I chose Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche stories. I chose this reading because I already enjoy stories about the gods in Greek mythology and it is also a romantic story (a topic most women are drawn too). At first, I was confused by the first two stories The Captive Women and Her Dream because they were not talking about the main story, then I realized it was setting up for the telling of the story. I really like this aspect, it reminded me of movie “Princess Bride” where the grandfather is telling the grandson the story to help him feel better on a sick day. Another aspect of the story that seemed very familiar was the evil older sisters who were jealous of their younger sister. This is like the evil step-sisters that Cinderella has to face in her romantic fairytale. After reading through the first groups of stories, I am leaning towards making the story more modernized. I like the direction of the reading even though Psyche is going through a hard time, thinking she has lost her beautiful husband forever, I get the feeling she is not going to settle so easily. She has already gotten revenge on her evil sisters, so next she needs to find her happy ending.

Evil step-sisters and mother from Disney's Cinderella. Source: Flickr by Amy