Cupid and Psyche

“She rushed out after him into the night. She could not see him, but she heard his voice speaking to her. He told her who he was, and sadly bade her farewell. ‘Love cannot live where there is no trust,’ he said, and flew away.”

The tale of Cupid and Psyche is full of intense drama and excitement! It fits wonderfully into all three levels of interpretation that we have been studying: the natural level, the social level, and the psychological level. The story appeals to our most basic instincts, as well as our social ties to others around us, and the deep personal feelings that we all experience. As you delve into the myth you will feel a strong connection to the characters involved and feel the pain that they experience during their struggles. This is what makes the myth so open to interpretation; everyone has had different struggles in their lives and will relate to the story in a different way.

Many parts of the story are felt by all of mankind on a natural, physical level. Cupid is the god of love, and though love itself is not something that we can reach out and touch, we all have an extreme physical reaction when we find ourselves in love. No matter where we live, or what our circumstances, we have all felt love at one time or another. This makes it easy to relate with the story on a very natural level. Love goes hand in hand with beauty, and beauty is the other physical element found within this story. Psyche is portrayed as a symbol of perfect beauty. Everyone loves to look at her; some people practically worshipped her. That is why Venus, Cupid’s mother, is so angry with her. Everyone worshipped Venus until Psyche came along, everyone thought she was so beautiful that they stopped paying attention to Venus. This infuriated the goddess, and she attempts to get revenge. She tells her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with an awful beast. This will be referred to again in the social and psychological breakdowns of the myth.

There are many aspects of the story that are not physical or natural, they are just emotions and feelings that we experience when we are around other people in a social setting. The item that comes to the front of that list is the way that Cupid feels about Psyche. After he marries her, he tells her that she is never allowed to look at him, or he will have to leave. This is a sort of trust test; when we feel a strong connection to someone in our community we hope that they would do anything we ask. As a result of Psyche’s good fortunes, her sisters become jealous and decide to convince Psyche to look at Cupid. This is like the peer pressure that we feel when we are in a social unit, other people can influence us to do things that we know are wrong. Just like so many of us, Psyche caves under the pressure and decides to look at Cupid. She quietly wakes in the middle of the night and lights a lamp to look at him; however, the lamp drips some hot wax onto Cupid’s shoulder. He then wakes up and sees that she was looking at him and that she was not faithful in what he asked her to do. His heart is broken and he flies away out of grief and goes to his mother. We want to run away and hide when someone hurts us, just like Cupid. The feelings we experience in a situation like this are felt on a deep, personal level.

Cupid’s heart is broken and he is feeling sad and alone, just as we do when a loved one betrays us. Psyche feels deep remorse for her actions and decides that she is going to do whatever it takes to win Cupid’s heart back. As you probably guessed by now, Cupid was unable to carry out his mother’s orders regarding Psyche. Venus is furious over what Psyche has done to her son. Jealousy is an emotion we all feel at one time or another, and it can drive us to do crazy things just as Venus does. Psyche finds her, and Venus decides to take Psyche as a servant. She forces her to do all sorts of seemingly impossible tasks. With some help from outside forces, Psyche always finds a way to accomplish them. This is a result of the strongest of all emotions: love. We all feel it at one time or another in our lives for someone. Psyche perseveres through all of the challenges in hopes that it will bring Cupid back to her. Cupid finally learns of what his mother has done to his wife, and realizes how much she loves him. He flies out and rescues her from his mother’s last challenge. He then brings Psyche up to Olympus and convinces Zeus to make her immortal. Venus is powerless to stop it and must accept Psyche as one of the gods.

This story is inspiring throughout, and like all good stories, has a happy ending. Though everyone may have a different interpretation of the events that occurred, we can all feel the broad and deep levels of emotion that are thrown in throughout the story. It goes without saying that we can all learn from this story if we search deep inside ourselves for the true meaning hidden within it. It is very appealing to our natural instincts, social bonds, and inner feelings.