Presenting as a feminist symbol during ancient Egypt, Hypatia was a scholarly woman, and a well respected intellectual. The wrongful murder of Hypatia, committed by Peter the Lector, was unjustified. The diction that Zielinski uses suggests that the murder that Peter the Lector committed was an act of pure violence, religious intolerance, and dehumanization. Zielinski uses the word “stripped” in describing the process of Hypatia’s murder and to suggest that her death was dehumanizing. Although being stripped was an unnecessary part of her execution, Peter the Lector’s mob of Christians continued to strip her. From the description of Hypatia, It can be inferred that she was a desirable woman, ”exceedingly beautiful and fair of form” was the description of her given by the Suda lexicon. Hypatia was desirable and lived celibately, and stripping her was degrading because her exposed body was left bare in front of the men she refused to let touch her, connoting negative feelings of humiliation and vulnerability. Hypatia was publicly shamed and disrespected, stripping her of her value, and dehumanizing her in the process. Hateful, religious intolerance is a major contribution to Hypatia’s murder. Peter the Lector was a Christian, opposed to Hypatia …show more content…
When Lector “dragged” Hypatia from the carriage, the denotations are to pull heavily along and to make an action shorter. This connotes feelings of reluctance. Hypatia was reluctantly forced into a church against her own will where she was savagely “beat.” Her gruesome death was performed in a church, a setting that worships concepts she does not believe in. The Christian mob used roofing tiles as a way to beat her, then viciously tore her body apart. Hypatia was not carried to the church, she did not walk to the church, she did not crawl, but she was dragged. She was treated as if she was a worthless