In Pursuit of Perfection: 3 Case-Studies from Mythology

In the days when marks were given out of ten for every subject in the school curriculum my English teacher announced that she would never, on principle, award the full ten marks to anyone because, as she put it, ‘There is no such thing as the perfect essay’.

The same is true for interpersonal relationships, though we still tend to form an opinion as to whether any given relationship is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for one or both parties in the relationship, or even for a whole group. Thanks to psychoanalysis we now think about good and bad objects peopling the psyche, and we also have the attractive concept of ‘good-enough’ mothering as a sine qua non for robust self-esteem, but to speak of ‘the perfect relationship’ is to court ridicule, not to mention disaster.

By contrast, perfection is a goal more easily pursued in the cold impersonal world of science, but this does not stop some individuals from seeking it in the uncertain world of interpersonal relationships. Whether the search for perfection is in themselves on in others (which ultimately devolves onto the self), the inevitable outcome is a tyranny of sorts. Persons with obsessive and perfectionistic traits impose a burden not only on themselves but on others.

Musing on this subject, I found myself wandering into the realms of mythology. The study of legends and myths, dismissed by some as irrelevant to psychological enquiry, is, to the contrary, an invaluable source of insight into human behaviour. To illustrate this, I have chosen three myths which I hope will throw light on the subject of perfectionism.

Narcissus and Echo

The first is the much reflected-on myth of Narcissus, (no pun intended). This is the story, given life by the Greek poet Ovid, of a young man who is so fascinated by his own beautiful image when he catches sight of it in a ‘silvery lake’ that he becomes oblivious of the need to take care of himself and indeed unaware of the existence, let alone the needs, of other people. As a result, he wastes away and his body is replaced by ‘a flower, its yellow centre girt with white petals.’ Contemplation of his own perfect image, it seems, is just not enough to sustain him.

The myth goes on to tell us that the nymph Echo, who longs to join with him and who calls out to him in vain, also perishes, and that her bones are turned to stone. She too has her own personal misfortune to contend with, having been afflicted with an impediment which renders her incapable of speech except to repeat the last words of anything that is said to her. The revenge exacted on her in this way by the goddess Juno for some alleged offence involving the spoken word is subject matter for a different paper and I will confine myself here to the story of the young man’s fate.

The Narcissus myth, like any other, is rich in symbolism and we can all sense the tragedy of the thwarted union between Narcissus and Echo. However, I want to focus on only one aspect of the myth, which is the ill-fated quest for perfection based on something as superficial as an outwardly beautiful image. This notion of the Self is a primitive one: the inner world does not exist and the needs of the other person are ignored.

Pygmalion and Galatea

My second case study is that of Pygmalion, a misogynistic sculptor from ancient Crete, who seeks perfection in the statue of a woman which he has modelled from his imagination. Disgusted by the real women around him, he devotes himself to his art and like Narcissus, becomes obsessed with the image in front of him and gazes endlessly upon it.

But we can see a step up in the evolution of mind here. This man has at least created the image of another person – a woman, even though his fascination for her is as superficial as that of Narcissus for his own image.

And so the myth unfolds. Pygmalion prays to the goddess Aphrodite to bring his model to life, which she does. Colour suffuses the model’s cheeks and she blossoms into a creature of flesh and blood, capable of becoming the perfect wife to Pygmalion. He names her Galatea, meaning ‘Milky White’, and the couple live happily ever after. Along the way they produce a son who grows up to found the city of Paphos, which is named after him.

A myth, however, is open to many interpretations. The myth of Pygmalion, with its idyllic ending, caught the beady eye of the playwright, George Bernard Shaw, who wrought it into his most successful play.  The modern version is set in the early twentieth century. The Pygmalion of the play is Professor Henry Higgins, an expert in phonetics, and like the original Pygmalion, a misogynist.

His chosen woman is a young flower girl named Eliza Doolittle, whose coarse speech and manners tempt him into using her as an object for one of his experiments, aimed at proving his view that how one speaks and conducts oneself will determine one’s place in society. By manipulating Eliza’s speech and coaching her on how to behave like a ‘lady’, he transforms her into a creature who is able to dupe the snobs and toffs who constitute Higgins’s social circle.

Shaw portrays Higgins as a cold-blooded, arrogant man who regards women of Eliza’s ilk with contempt. The professor has no regard for her fate at the end of his experiment and has no empathy for her predicament when it emerges that she is left stranded between two worlds. ‘We can throw her back into the gutter,’ he says to his friend Colonel Pickering.

At this point, confusion reigns. In response to popular clamour for a romantic outcome, several different endings to the play are tried. Shaw himself seems to want both characters to be strong-minded and defiant, perhaps portraits of himself. He fashions a scenario in which Eliza ends up marrying a chinless wonder who has fallen for her, while an unreformed and unrepentant Henry Higgins laughs to himself, confirmed in his bachelor status. The play ends on that note.

But not the myth. In the 1950’s and again in 1960’s the voice of the crowd shouted its acclaim when ‘My Fair Lady’, the musical version of the story by Lerner and Loew appeared, first on the stage and later as a film. In a fine blend of romance and realism the couple are finally united, Eliza spirited as ever and Higgins his old cantankerous self, (‘Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?’), adumbrating a shared path through life strewn with flowers and rocks. The perfection which the original Pygmalion had sought seems as elusive as ever.

Rabbi Judah and the Golem

My third case study takes us into the deep waters of religion and mysticism. In this case the search is for someone who will rescue an entire community. In the legend of the Golem, a Rabbi in sixteenth century Prague, a certain Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, models a statue from a lump of clay and invests it with life in order that the Jewish community of Prague can be protected from anti-Semitic attacks.

The legend is set at a time when Jews were turning in desperation to mystical solutions for the perennial problem of persecution. The Rabbi, who is the product of a mystical movement known as ‘Kabbalah’ (those who receive) creates a larger than life figure in human form and endows it with sacred properties by embedding in its forehead a piece of parchment on which is written the single word denoting God, ‘Shem’ (literally ‘The Name’), and brings the Golem to life.

As with other myths, there are several variations to choose from. In one, the Golem, named Josef, makes himself invisible and summons spirits from the dead to aid his cause. In another, the Golem continues to grow ever larger, threatening the destruction of the universe, and the Rabbi who has created him is forced to de-activate him by removing the sacred word, causing the Golem to crumble into dust.

Short-story writers, film-makers and novelists have had a field day with the theme. In a 1997 novel, ‘The Puttermesser Papers’, Cynthia Ozick creates a female Golem out of the dirt in her flower pots to serve as the daughter she never had. This Golem helps the heroine, Ruth Puttermesser, to become Mayor of New York before it runs out of control. There is yet another version of the story in which the Golem falls in love (‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ to paraphrase Mandy Rice Davis) and when his love is unrequited, he runs amok.

In the original Golem legend, the Rabbi, who has devoted his life to study and prayer and is therefore ill-equipped to deal with the muscle-bound brutes who would persecute him, creates a strong man whom he can control and invest with magical powers to protect him.

There is always the recurring theme of an unfulfilled human being seeking a creature which will provide the perfect solution to a fundamental human need. However, in keeping with the message that there is no such thing as perfection in human relations, the creature inevitably gets out of control for one reason or another. A relationship based on unquestioning subservience seems doomed to break down sooner or later.

All versions of these myths except the fairy tale ones, tend to have bad endings written into them. Total immersion in one’s image (Narcissus), or in the outwardly beautiful form of another person (Pygmalion) or in the cultivation of the mind while relying on the physical power of others (The Golem), always carries a bad prognosis.

Harold Behr
harold.behr@ntlworld.com