Weaving with words: Recording women’s experiences in feminist revisionary adaptations of Greek myth

From the beginning, mythmaking has been profoundly patriarchal, and with the emergence of feminist movements came feminist revisionary adaptations of ancient myth. In this thesis, I argue Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005) and Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018) both stand as examples of feminist revisionary mythmaking, and they use their power as revisionary texts to amplify exemplary female characters’ voices that address and comment upon women’s circumstances and social movements from the periods in which they were written. This study goes back to the beginning when The Odyssey was first recorded to see how the myth represents women and creates ideals as a lesson for listeners. Thousands of years later Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad emerges to retell the story from a different perspective, and while doing so, Atwood carefully dismantles the image of the ideal woman. Atwood’s Penelope faces obstacles such as a patriarch who attempts to drown her, a somewhat absent mother, internalized misogyny, sexual double standards, and parenting woes, all of which combine to create an image of women’s issues and realities in the early 2000s. As the third wave of feminism begins to taper off and the fourth wave rises, Madeline Miller’s Circe retells The Odyssey again from another new perspective. In the novel, Miller’s Circe redefines what it means to be a woman growing up in a patriarchal society as she faces misogyny, exile, sexual assault, and the making of a monster. The lessons Atwood’s and Miller’s characters encounter follow women’s experiences from the good to the bad to the downright ugly, showcasing women’s need to create their own mythmaking tradition to capture women’s ever-changing realities. Key words: Adaptation, Greek Myth, Feminism, Women, Retellings

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Hamblin, Nicole Marie

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Purnis, Jan
• Johnston, Susan

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Horacki, Michael

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/140

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/17114