Rewriting Myth: Contemporary Feminist Revisions of Classical Legends

Abstract

Myths have acted as a potent cultural story that impacts on collective memory, social values and understandings of gender for a long time. Classical legends have been told mainly from the men's point of view, and have usually portrayed female characters as passive, as moral symbols, or as agents for the male heroism. In recent feminist works, women's encounters with and voices about these old stories have called them into question and reconstructed them. This book examines classical myths as they have been reframed in the modern era by feminist writers to undo inherited gender norms and restore marginalized perspectives and to reconceptualise the role of the feminine in the modern world and culture. This research is qualitative research with a textual analysis and comparative literary criticism approach. It explores feminist reinterpretations of the classic stories of the past, focusing on how the story, characters, symbols and themes have been reshaped. Particular attention is given to the representation of women who are well-known for their role in the story as autonomous agents who are portrayed with more than one emotion, motivation, and social identity, yet are not portrayed as secondary characters in a story written from the male point of view. The implications and interconnections of these revisions and gender inequality, power, identity, resistance, memory and social justice are also explored. The findings prove that feminist readings are not rejections of popular and recognizable stories but rather a reconfiguration of their content through the discovery of voices that were previously unheard and the "discovery" of the assumptions of a patriarchal story. These reworked narratives provide opportunities for cultural discussion that restorying forgotten voices, disrupting dominant narratives and proposing alternative storylines. The study also demonstrates the way in which current feminist issues such as women's rights, women's equality and women's representation in literature are connected to classical mythology, which has remained relevant in popular literary discourse. The study finds that the classical mythologies re-written in feminist terms are certainly literary gestures that invite to a broader discussion of issues around gender, identity and cultural memory while opening the hermeneutics of the myth. They have brought the marginalised stories back into focus and challenged the reader's perception of woman as a character and a symbol, to actively rethink the connections between mythology, history and social values. The study emphasises the capacity of the myth to change over time as a reflection of changing perspectives on culture, and its significance as a medium that can be used to promote inclusive and diverse literary traditions.