Fiction, folklore and feminism: the myth of Medusa

 

                              Fiction, folklore and feminism: the myth of Medusa

                                     First published in the Carmel Beat, in December, 2020.

Throughout history and especially ever since the advent of the Percy Jackson novels, the tale of Medusa has been one of the most popular myths that have been told and retold over the years.

In the Greek myths Gorgon Medusa or Medusa, as she is more popularly known, was a young woman who was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the sacred temple of Athena, goddess of wisdom. Enraged, Athena transformed her into a hideous monster with snakes for hair and eyes that turned to stone anyone who looked into them. Medusa was made immortal, forced to live this way for the rest of eternity, branded as a monster, while Poseidon, perhaps because he was an immortal being himself, escaped scot free. But different versions tell the tale differently. Some say Athena blessed her with this new form to keep her safe from other men who could take advantage of her, others say Poseidon did not rape her but that they were an ‘item’ and that she went willingly with him to Athena’s temple.

However, in every version of the tale Medusa is cursed, made hideous and eventually beheaded. The hero Perseus, egged on by Athena, tricked and beheaded Medusa and gifted her severed head to Athena to adorn the latter’s shield Aegis. “It is interesting to see how Medusa’s story has been told and retold in a patriarchal society: a victim of rape is portrayed as a powerful but repulsive monster,” says Ms Tracy Jose, Assistant Professor of the English Department of Stella Maris College, Chennai.

One of the earliest representations of Medusa was in ‘Metamorphosis’ by Ovid, where he describes her, as was customary in his time, only in terms of how attractive she was to the male gaze. 

Over the years, we have seen Medusa appear in many fictionalised versions of the Greek myths, in literature, art and pop culture: sometimes as a stereotypical cunning and manipulative female, sometimes in a more empathetic retelling as an innocent caught in the crossfire between two Immortals.

Italian painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini were known for their androcentric and phallogocentric portrayals of Medusa. Cellini’s sculpture, titled ‘Perseus with the Head of Medusa’ shows a naked Perseus standing on Medusa’s mangled body, holding her head aloft in triumph. In one of his two paintings of Medusa, Caravaggio depicts the final moments of Medusa as she is beheaded.

Since then, feminist retellings of popular myths have frequently had Medusa at their centre. Patricia Smith’s poem Medusa, for instance, contrasts starkly with Ovid’s depiction. Smith paints a picture of Medusa as a confident and poised seductress until she is cursed by Athena. Carol Ann Duffy, in her dramatic monologue Medusa, examines Medusa as a symbolic representation of jealousy as using her as a metaphor for a jealous lover. Feminist writers and thinker such as Helene Cixous have used Medusa’s story to challenge the male gaze and male writing. 

“In popular culture we see Medusa through Uma Thurman’s portrayal in film and we also see Rihanna transforming into Medusa for a magazine cover,” says Ms Tracy. “These stories are often told as a challenge to the patriarchal perception of Medusa (like Freud’s highly androcentric theory that Medusa’s decapitation symbolizes castration, for e.g.), as women fight back within a larger culture of male violence.”

In 2008, artist Luciano Garbati, in his sculpture ‘Medusa with the Head of Perseus,’ reimagines the myth showing what would happen if Medusa was the ‘victorious hero’ instead of the ‘slain monster.’ In his sculpture, a naked Medusa stands over Perseus’ mangled body, holding a sword in one hand and his severed head in the other. The important thing to note here would be that instead of  triumph, her expression held only resoluteness; as if this were something she had to do, as if rather than to prove a point, she beheaded Perseus to survive.

Medusa has since not only become a symbol of the feminist movement but also of the #MeToo movement.

However, all these versions of Medusa, including Garbati’s, have one thing in common.  “All of these stand for the zeitgeist of the times they were made in. They tend to hypersexualize Medusa as an object to be viewed by others,” says Ms Tracy. “If we are to consider Medusa as a symbol of the #MeToo movement, it must be done by listening to her as she is retold by womxn as a sexual assault survivor, far away from the stronghold of the patriarchy and the male gaze”.

But why is Medusa relevant to us as Indians as well as womxn?

We are in a country that is deeply invested in its mythology, several such stories have been fed to us over a significant part of our childhoods. Mythology itself has been the foundation for the oral tradition of storytelling throughout history, and questioning them would be to question patriarchy itself.

In Hindu mythology for instance, we have Shurpanakha, another Medusa-esque woman who was disfigured by a virtuous male hero in ‘self defence’ and who has also been the centre of several feminist retellings herself.

As we live in an age of retellings, in order to topple any of the pillars of patriarchy, it is paramount that we question and examine the nature and various interpretations of our well known myths. In an age full of narrations and re-narrations, only if we look at how these myths that were never set in stone to begin with, can be subverted, can they enable us -through each retelling- to tell our own, individual tales.