Judith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 975

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Heroism and Challenging Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes about men and women are informed by the culture, time, and place of one’s birth. Judith, in celebrating the heroism and faith of the virgin Judith, upends gender stereotypes of the poem’s Medieval era that are, to some extent, still operating today, more than a millennium later.

Engaged as a battle narrative, Judith challenges assumptions about the role of men and women in time of conflict. The men in the poem, while traditionally portrayed as competent, heroic figures, are cartoonish in either their villainy or sheer uselessness. The much-feared Assyrian general Holofernes, for instance, is over-the-top monstrous in his predatory plot to seduce the virgin Judith. At the feast, Holofernes is more animal than human. He “took joy in the wine-pouring / Howled and hurled forth a hideous din” (Lines 23-24). Dispatched by Judith, Holofernes, “bereft of soul” (Line 115), is left in the void of a dark afterlife “amid woes and tortures” (Line 118).

The Assyrians under Holofernes’s command are passive toadies following their general’s craven plot to defile a virgin. And after Holofernes is dead, with their army under attack by the Israelites, the Assyrian soldiers dither outside their general’s tent, unable to find the nerve to disturb their leader at the moment of their greatest peril. When they discover their general is dead, the Assyrians run in cowardly terror. The Israelites, for their part, are too ready to surrender. Their city surrounded by the Assyrian encampments, they lose their faith in their God and see no way out of their predicament.

It is only Judith, a young woman, who emerges as the hero typical in war epics. Judith, accompanied only by her maid, also a woman, confronts the general, decapitates him, steals through the Assyrians’ camp, and in turn rouses the dispirited Israelites to fight and ultimately leads them to victory. Judith’s bravery shatters gender expectations in that she is essential in securing the Israelites’ victory. In some ways, she fuses gender expectations: She is both beautiful and virginal as well as intelligent and violent.

In the end, however, she is victorious, heroic, and seen as worthy of her people’s admiration, rewarded with accolades typically reserved for men. The resulting message serves an inspirational purpose: No matter one’s station in life, even for those considered among the weakest or lowliest, as women were often seen, putting one’s faith in God leads to victory and reward on Earth and in Heaven.

The Importance of Moral Courage

The poem depicts Judith as a valiant warrior able to lead an army into battle, not solely because of her strength or courage but because of her faith—her moral courage. It is not enough to be bold or courageous or to be decisive or bloodthirsty, all elements of traditional epic war heroes. Fragmented though the original manuscript may be, the first part of Judith that remains, fittingly, begins with a prayer. Before she engages the Assyrians on a mission that she understands is suicidal, Judith prays to her “Heavenly Father” (Line 5) to guide her. Her “true faith” (Line 6) in the “holy Ruler of Heaven” (Line 6) alone ensures her victory.

Judith is less a traditional war epic then and more a parable of Christian faith addressed to a culture terrified by the implications of being overrun by pagan Vikings from the north. Judith prays before she strikes at the neck of the sleeping Holofernes. She prays as she and her maid carry the general’s head in a sack through the Assyrian encampment. In rallying the despondent Israelites, she invokes the power of faith and prays to their God to give them courage. The subsequent slaughter on the battlefield manifests the “will of God” (Line 126). Judith’s courage then is a moral act of faith.

Unlike the Israelites, “grieved ones of mind” (Line 148), Judith never doubts the power of God. Her heroism is prayer in action. In the end, when the grateful Israelites shower their warrior-savior Judith with the traditional trinkets of battlefield victory—gems and jewelry and even the armor of the assassinated Holofernes—she gives thanks to the “Heavenly Host” (Line 353). Recognizing that the city’s celebration of her heroism is yet another gift from God, Judith exemplifies not bravery but humble faith, and she looks ahead to “Paradise as a victorious prize” (Line 355). Ultimately, it is her moral courage that allows her to acknowledge that their battlefield victory gives “praise to God” (Line 357) rather than herself.

The Brutality of War

Judith is a prayerful celebration of the power of Christian faith and the moral persuasion of Judith’s saint-like humility, but Judith also retains many of the typical features of the war epic, a tradition that dates to Antiquity, with its graphic depictions of the brutality of hand-to-hand combat. The Israelites were, at least on paper, no match for the invading Assyrian army. Hence the reason why Holofernes and his men engage in careless drunken revelry within earshot of the walls of Bethulia. They are certain the scratch army of the Israelites will be no match for their military might. The Assyrians anticipate a slaughter, which, ironically, they get.

Miraculously, the Israelites rise to the challenge. Part 5 recounts how the Israelites, animated by the inspirational encouragement of Judith, chase down the fleeing Assyrians, their eyes “alert with courage” (Line 302) and their weapons “drawn to the sun” (Line 303). With “dripping swords” (Line 309), the Israelites cut through the Assyrian defenses, now “thirsting” (Line 314) for bloody conquest. They refuse mercy with a brutal vigor that recalls the fury of the feared Viking invaders: “They spared not a one / Of the hated host, neither high nor low” (Lines 238-39).

But, the poem suggests, there is a difference in the violence demonstrated by these two groups. To a culture too familiar with the brutal tactics of the invading Viking armies and their well-earned reputation for total slaughter on the battlefield, Judith’s depiction of the violent rage of the Israelites and the destruction of the Assyrians manifests the Old Testament God of righteous wrath. This, the narrating voice suggests, is a holy war. Ultimately, there is Assyrian violence, which, like the violence of the Vikings, the poem depicts as brutality in the name of craven material gain and cheap earthly power; and there is Israelite violence, which is brutality in the name of God’s stunning justice and, ultimately, His glorious love.