Galatea

Galatea’s body has never been her own. Throughout the story, she is focused on and motivated by her desire for self-control and bodily autonomy. Although it might seem that, at times, she is conforming to others’ expectations about how her body should look and what it should do, the end of the story reveals that she has carefully orchestrated a reclamation of her physical autonomy. This plan culminates in her death, but the choice to die is, in fact, the ultimate act of self-liberation and self-determination; moreover, it specifically benefits other girls and women who might face the same dark fate Galatea once did.

While Galatea’s physicality is central to everything that happens in the story, scenes that involve her body tend to focus on what other people are doing to it. While in the hospital, the doctor and nurse are in total control of her: They repeatedly force her into bed, make her drink tea, and do things like measure her pulse without her consent. When Galatea’s husband visits her, she is able to have a tiny measure of physical freedom, but it is only so that she can arrange her body in a particular way—a way that involves a total lack of movement—for her husband’s benefit.