Feminine Power and Subjugation Theme Analysis

In the Enuma Elish, much of the action is driven by the primordial goddess Tiamat, whose traits are associated with irritability, reactivity, and deception. This is because Tiamat is the sea-goddess—associated with a force (water) that, for ancient Babylonians, was unpredictable and prone to behave in ways that were hostile to human life. Therefore, the creation epic portrays Marduk’s battle with her as key to the founding of human civilization. In doing so, it suggests that “feminine” traits are extremely formidable—only the greatest of the gods can overpower them—but also must be suppressed so that human life can carry on in an orderly way.

Tiamat is primarily portrayed as irritable and reactive. She is easily disturbed and riled up by the other gods’ carryings-on. The original violence of the story is touched off by Tiamat’s anger when the younger gods’ play disrupts her sleep, and later, she “[heaves] restlessly” as a result of the newly created wind. Though these disturbances are bad enough, Tiamat is piqued just as much by the nagging taunts of her offspring. Upset by the winds, her children demand, “Was your lover Apsu not in your heart? […] No wonder you sit alone!” and “Are you not a mother? […] Don’t you love us?” These somewhat humorous complaints don’t bear a clear connection to the issue at hand, almost suggesting that the younger gods know Tiamat’s sensitivity and are taking advantage of her weak spots to get their way.

At the same time, Tiamat is definitely not an ineffectual, passive character. She creates terrifying beings, commands obedience, and sets war in motion. Tiamat fashions snakes, dragons, and demons to fight against Marduk. She is a creator, even making an “unfaceable weapon” (the venom-filled, sharp-fanged snakes), and she commands obedience: “her orders were so powerful, they could not be disobeyed.” She utters curses that effectively scare away all the other gods except for Marduk (“Whoever looks upon [Tiamat’s creatures] shall collapse in utter terror!”). In short, Tiamat is a formidable force of nature.

Tiamat also takes the initiative to marshal an army and lead her forces into battle. She “[confers] leadership” on her consort Qingu, she musters her troops, and she bestows on Qingu the Tablet of Destinies so that his word will be law. She appoints Qingu in her stead because he is her “only lover,” but there’s no suggestion that she isn’t capable of occupying the same role herself. In addition, Tiamat’s ability to fashion a formidable army out of nothing and determine its course suggests that the feminine capacity to create life is viewed as extremely powerful, before which all but the greatest of gods must tremble.

In the end, however, Tiamat’s weakness is that she is easily angered, and this is what leads to her final defeat.  At first, Tiamat appears to have the upper hand. When Marduk comes to confront her, Tiamat casts a spell of falsehood that confuses everyone who looks at her, causing their will and actions to become muddled. Even Marduk is momentarily unable to discern her strategy because Tiamat’s incantations are so powerful, showing again how formidable she is.

However, Marduk recovers himself and attacks Tiamat at a weak spot. He accuses her of being different on the surface than she is in her depths: “Why are you so friendly on the surface / When your depths conspire to muster a battle force?” She is a life-giving mother, but deep down, she lacks compassion (an allusion to the simultaneously life-giving and deadly powers of water). This is what provokes the goddess’s natural rage to surface once again, letting Marduk take advantage of her sputtering to disable and kill her. After Tiamat is slain, she is divided up into tame, manageable bodies—such as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—that are amenable to human civilization and flourishing. However, even now, there’s the underlying threat of floods, and thus the need for continued appeal to gods like Marduk.

In the end, through Tiamat’s character, feminine traits are associated with forces—like floods and storms—that were unpredictable, threatening to people’s livelihoods and to society, and in need of harnessing. There’s never any question about the power of such forces to do deadly harm to even the mightiest of gods—that’s why Marduk must be triumphant in the end, reassuring audiences that the natural world can be subdued so as to allow people to live in peace, no matter how frightening its powers appear on the surface. This treatment of Tiamat’s femininity might also extend more broadly to society’s view of women and “female” traits at this time. As a more centralized civilization took shape, with the prominence of the city beginning to dominate over agrarian rhythms, patterns of male-dominated governance—viewed as more orderly and predictable—were starting to become weighted more heavily than those “feminine” rhythms associated with a more diffuse agrarian society.