Eve's Apology

While on the surface “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women” seems to be pro-Eve and pro-feminism, but looking deeper it is evident that Lanyer is not necessarily feminist at all. In “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Lanyer disguises her anti-feminist views by hiding her views in seemingly feminist statements, when in reality, she subtly uses Eve’s weakness as a woman as defense for her “mistake” of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. While Lanyer portrays Eve in an anti-feminist way, she also paints a picture of how Eve could, in some ways, be considered the first feminist. The first defense, “Our mother Eve, who tasted the tree,/Giving to Adam what she held most dear,/Was simply good, and had no power to see,” (Lanyer, 19-21)

It appears the the author is trying to say that Eve’s only problem was the fact that she is hyper-loving to the point that it became detrimental for more than just her and Adam, her womanly, loving nature caused the loss of eternal life for all of humankind. Further, it seemingly explains that she did not do this for herself, she did this for her dear, Adam. The apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was Eve’s present to Adam as a way of showing her affection for him. If this were the case, it would again mean that Eve did not necessarily understand the consequences of her actions which is somewhat offensive towards women and encourages the anti-feminist ideas of the author, Lanyer. Again, Eve knew the choice she was making and consciously decided to try the apple. Betraying the word of God and

After the serpent coerced and convinced Eve to try it, she handed it to Adam, who also tried the apple. This action helped the author to determine that Adam, “Who being framed by God’s eternal hand/The most perfectest man that ever breathed on earth” (Lanyer 41-42) also messed up, he also chose to disregard “that strait command” (Lanyer, 43) that came straight from their creator. How could God be mad and punish just Eve when his perfect Adam did the same thing, as Lanyer says “(Eve’s) fault though great, yet (Adam) was most to blame,” he was the one directly told not to taste the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, if anything he should have just let Eve try it alone, but he also chose to try the forbidden fruit. In this situation, Adam became submissive and followed Eve’s lead to try the apple. Eve stepped up and not only made her own choice, but she stood by it admitting that she took the fruit off of the tree and gave it to Adam when God questioned them. In this instance, Eve took on a feminist role and took control of her life and situation. Though she did say that the serpent deceived her, she didn’t try to place blame on Adam who, being the man, was supposedly in charge of their