By Jay Flood
Authors are using Greek mythology classics to highlight voices and perspectives skipped over in the originals. Stories told about women lacked the perspective of women, and therefore left out pivotal details. Modern retellings of Greek classics are humanizing these characters that were previously reduced to tools to move the story forward. What once were stories about male heroes who viewed women as property and objects have now become stories where women are human beings with thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Rape was a common and normalized plot device in the classics, but because women were viewed as property and objects, it wasn’t viewed as rape or violent in any way. If Poseidon never raped Medusa, then Athena never would have cursed her, and the story of the gorgon with snakes for hair that turned people to stone never would have existed. In Medusa’s story, rape was a plot device to create a monster. “Athena’s Child” by Hannah M. Lynn and “Stone Blind” by Natalie Haynes’ retellings of the story of Medusa make sure to highlight the fact that Medusa was unjustly punished by Athena for being raped. Although neither book completely focuses on Medusa, nor are they from her perspective, they criticize the original myth for blaming a woman for a man’s actions by turning her into a monster.
These myths were written by men who lived during a time when women were considered property, which is reflected in these myths. The stories were written about women, but never by women. Therefore, the language used never depicts the violence these women faced, only their violent reactions. In the classics, Circe is described as an evil sorceress who turns men into pigs. Her entire character in the myths exists to drug men and then turn them into swine. She’s given some backstory to explain how she became a witch, but no explanation for why she turns men into swine.
In Madeline Miller’s “Circe,” readers experience Circe’s life as though the story was hers and instead of her being a minor, evil character in other stories, characters like Hermes and Odysseus are now minor characters in her story. Miller said that when she first read “The Odyssey,” she was upset that no one had ever asked why Circe turned men into pigs. She also expressed disappointment with how undeveloped all the women characters were and said she wrote this book because she wanted Circe to have room to grow. In this retelling, Circe is someone who had an abusive childhood, dealt with the loneliness and isolation of exile, and was welcoming to all who visited her island until eventually she was taken advantage of.
Circe was once a minor, undeveloped, and one-dimensional character who was portrayed as sadistic with no other motivations. Now that people are reexamining the classics and realizing how little the women characters have been explored, authors are rewriting the myths to make room for women to be more than just plot devices to move men forward.
Circe struggles with the idea of power in a world where women are considered inferior to men. The only way she knows how to protect herself from the abuses of men is to exert power over them. In “Circe,” she is raped by men she graciously hosted on her island because she was alone and they knew they could overpower her. After that, she turned any men that came to her island into pigs. Showing that women have depth and motivation when they’ve otherwise been portrayed as evil is powerful. It’s hard to have empathy for a woman portrayed as sadistic. But when that character is developed and given a voice to share her story, it’s hard not to have empathy.
“The Silence of the Girls” and “The Women of Troy” by Pat Barker are retellings of the Iliad, but from the perspective of Achilles’ war prize. Briseis is a Trojan woman whose entire family was murdered by the man she now is a slave to. Readers experience the Trojan War and life in the camp from the perspective of a woman who is only considered a war prize and sex slave in the original Iliad. But Briseis had a childhood, a family, a husband, and feelings like any other person. She finds comfort in the other women in the camp and highlights the brutality they all faced. Barker is blunt with her writing and does not leave anything up to interpretation. There is no sugarcoating the atrocities the women went through.
About halfway through the book, we begin to have chapters from Achilles’ perspective to truly understand how horribly he thought of women. He only cared about his ego, and losing his war prize, whose name he didn’t even know, to Agamemnon hurt it. There is no room for readers to have empathy for any of the men because for once, the men are not the heroes, they are the villains. Briseis’ entire family, including her husband, was murdered by the man she is now owned by, all because another man started a war because his wife ran away. This series gives voices to the women who fell victim to the men we once viewed as heroes.
Other Greek mythology retellings I have on my shelf are similar, in that the intention is to give voices to women who only exist within the story of a Greek hero. “A Thousand Ships” by Natalie Haynes is another retelling of the Iliad through women’s perspectives. “Ariadne” by Jennifer Saint is a retelling of the myth of the minotaur, the labyrinth, and Theseus, but from Ariadne’s perspective.
“Phaedra” by Laura Shepperson is a retelling of the wife of Theseus who, in the classics, fell in love with his stepson and accused him of rape when he rejected her. This retelling highlights the fact that when a woman accuses a man of rape, the truth is decided by men, leaving women to go unheard. If men decided the truth about the assault without allowing her to share her side of the story, they are going to believe the man and share his defense as truth. The classics say Phaedra accused Theseus’ stepson of rape after he rejected her. But was that really what happened? Or was that what he said happened and everyone believed him because it was his word against hers?
“Daughters of Sparta” by Claire Heywood is another retelling of the Iliad, but from Helen of Troy’s perspective. A ten-year war was fought over her, but her perspective was never shared. She is never more than a pretty face and a wife to Agamemnon. This retelling gives her depth and shows that she was a sister, daughter, friend, and most importantly a person before she was a wife. She was more than the beautiful face fought over in the Trojan War.
I have many Greek retellings on my shelf and there are many more I don’t. None of these stories require much knowledge of Greek mythology, as it’s mostly explained in these books, but from a woman’s perspective instead of a man’s. These stories show how important women’s perspectives are in literature. What a man calls “seduction” is in fact rape and what a man calls “sadistic” is a powerful woman who has autonomy and protects herself. The heroic Hercules and justifications of the Trojan War are discredited when a woman tells the truths of the atrocities women went through. Too often are women reduced to flat, one-dimensional characters who only exist to advance men’s stories. This new wave of retellings from women’s perspectives will create a place for women and girls to read about strong, independent, and powerful women in spaces they didn’t exist before.
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