Gagool Gender Roles

In having the imposing figure of Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed, become a wizened monkey-like figure, Haggard’s hearkening back to the character of Gagool is unmistakable. Though a savage priestess for the Kukuana people, Gagool shares many characteristics with the terrifying and preternaturally beautiful queen of the Amahagger people. Not only do their physical descriptors become similar upon Ayesha’s death scene, but the two women exist outside the bounds of temporal limits, having access to a secret knowledge and power that places them in a highly privileged, and feared, position within their respective societies. Such an emphasis is placed upon their position of possessing strange power that it is evident Haggard is wrestling with the issue
A cursory examination of these two women provides an understanding of the attributes that bind these two characters together as multi-faced representations of women in powerful positions. Upon first seeing Gagool in the novel King Solomon’s Mines, Quatermain is horrified by her visage, with her “whole countenance” that could have been taken “for a sun-dried corpse had it not been for a pair of large black eyes” (93). Tellingly, Quatermain in the passage only ever refers to Gagool as an “it,” making her seem more worthy of the title creature than human being. Conversely, Holly has an exceedingly different reaction to viewing Ayesha unveiled for the first time. He states, “I gazed above them, at her face—and I do not exaggerate—shrank back blinded and amazed” (143). Her beauty so astounds Holly that he falls in love with her immediately, a feat no other woman has ever performed before in his life due to this fear and overwhelming misogyny toward women. However, Ayesha’s beauty is shallow, as Holly
Ayesha’s source of power is two-fold, not only does she rule through terror from her power, but she is able to control Holly and Leo using her supernatural beauty, such that they are unable to resist her whenever she is unveiled. Gagool’s authority also stems from her powers, but, due to her status as being part of the native race and her age, she does not possess the secondary power of beauty that Ayesha does. However, all the women in the work of King Solomon’s Mines and She are killed off whenever their authority and autonomy interrupts the bond between the male characters. As such, the novels present women in spaces of power within society as being threatening, not only are Gagool and Ayesha terrorizing their respective societies, but they are overturning the natural order of the patriarchal lineage by grasping spaces of authority that are antithetical to Haggard’s traditional notion of society in which the men held positions of authority and women were expected to remain in the domestic realm. The origin of Gagool’s powers are unknown, but she is connected with a mysterious, ancient past due to her advanced age and the continual references she provides to having seen events that had centuries previously. Gagool states, “when the country was young I was