Family Relationships and Their Consequences Essay

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It is interesting to note that this fact is not scorned by anyone in the story, and that the incestuous relationship was officially sanctioned by Jacob's uncle Laban, who gave Jacob "his daughter Rachel as wife also" (Genesis 30: 28). Whereas incest functions as merely an aside in the story of Jacob, it is the primary plot function in Myrrha's tale. All of her woes descend from the fact that she finds her father desirable, sexually attractive, and eventually acts on this incestuous urge. However, it is portrayed as wrong and base from a number of different sources including Orpheus who is narrating it, Cinyras when he finds out he has been unwittingly duped into participating in, and most of all from Myrrha who is the one who seeks an incestuous relationship. Her anguish at dealing with this fact is discernible in the subsequent quotation in which she laments the fact that it is "a wicked desire to see Cinyras, touch him…and kiss him (Ovid, 2000). Thus, it is quite apparent that Myrhha desires an incestuous relationship, which is a salient point of commonality between this story and that of Jacob.

Despite the negative portrayal of women and the incestuous that are shared between each narrative, the principle difference between them is that there is a reconciliation between Jacob's family, where such a happy ending is not possible in poor Myrrha's story. Such a difference is more profound that all of the similarities, because it shows a degree of solidarity and unification in the family structures that was sought after in both stories, yet only achieved in one. In fact, this difference is all the more pronounced in the two tales for the simple fact that Jacob, who has had numerous children with his two wives, has actually succeeded in making his family larger and more potent due to the vicissitudes he endures.

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In fact, Jacob readily gives his progeny to Esau, telling him "These are to find favor in the sight of my lord." However, this reconciliation between disparate family members is not found in Myrrha's story. The young woman is transformed into a tree at the conclusion of this tale, which the following quotation alludes to, "While she was still speaking, the soil covered her shins; roots, breaking from her toes, spread sideways, supporting a tall trunk" (Ovid, 2000). Her banishment from her father is complete, and does not allow for any reconciliation, which is the main difference between these stories.

Despite the abundant similarities between these two stories -- pertaining to their both detailing women as harmful individuals and depicting incest -- they are more dissimilar for the simple fact that at their conclusion, the family unity of Jacob's clan is restored while it is irreparably sundered in Myrrah's. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in Jacob's story, he is not the cause of the deception (Rebekah is), whereas Myrrha, who is readily assisted by her nurse, only has herself to blame......

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