The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy and Its Hold on Culture

The Madonna/Whore Dichotomy

and Its Hold on Culture

The literary trope of the “Madonna/Whore” or “Virgin/ Whore” dichotomy is a simple one: women are either wanton sexual beings constantly tempting men and are only worthy of lust, or virginal and pure angels of domesticity and goodness who are worthy of love. This patriarchal structure that appears not only in art and literature, but also in societal expectations placed upon women, is pervasive. Of course, many writers have upended or questioned this motif in their work, including Eleanor Burgess in this play. We see “The Wife” and “The Mistress” as the embodiments of these two archetypes, but are they really?

In Miller’s original play, only Linda, Willy Loman’s wife, is given a name and a complex life. His mistress is not given a name or much dimensionality beyond being a woman who uses her sexuality to get gifts and favors from men. In Burgess’ play, “The Mistress” is the first character we meet and she has much more dimension and agency than she does in Miller’s drama. “The Wife”, or proxy for Linda Loman, questions her role as the perfect wife and mother at the expense of her own satisfaction.

This dichotomy also appears in another of Miller’s most well-known plays, The Crucible. In the play, the teenage Abigail Williams is portrayed as a beautiful temptress, vying for the affections of the married John Proctor. Her foil, Elizabeth Proctor, is portrayed as a cold woman whose husband is forced into the fiery young Abigail’s arms because of her prudish nature, but she is also the moral center of the play. Abigail wields immense power in the play, but is portrayed as the villain, while Elizabeth’s purity and goodness is meant to be admired even in the face of death.

While Miller and Burgess’ use of this dichotomy are most relevant to Wife of a Salesman, the literary trope is one that goes back hundreds of years. Whether looking at biblical women such as the Virgin Mary versus the cultural image of Jezebel, or at more contemporary portrayals in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or the films of Alfred Hitchcock, this trope is pervasive. So pervasive in fact, that psychoanalytic theory has named a complex after the idea: the Madonna-Whore Complex exists when a man cannot perform sexually in a loving relationship because it goes against his views of pure women being chaste instead of sexual beings.