A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON THE GREEK MYTHOlOGY : REWRITINGS OF GREEK MYTHS BY CONTEMPORARY WOMEN WRITERS . A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PENELOPIAD BY MARGARET ATWOOD.
Loading...
Date
2021-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UNIVERSITY OF MOHAMED BOUDIAF
Abstract
Abstract
Since the dawn of humanity mythology has played a significant role in both shaping and
depicting the values, norms, and aspects of people‘s cultures. It has been passed down from one generation
to the next one through numerous means and is still present in different cultural aspects till nowadays.
However, the archetypes in these myths have helped to oppress women personally and socially and have
forced them to adopt identities which actually contradict their nature.encouraged by the feminist
movement, Many thinkers and female writers especially have attempted to revise, deconstruct, and rewrite
these myths from different points of view to uncover the ideology beneath them and to lay bare the reasons
and consequences of this systematic oppression women have endured for ages. In so doing, they enabled
women to speak their genuine experience through female characters in these myths. The Penelopiad by
Margaret Atwood is considered as an archetype to the rewritings of Greek myths by contemporary female
writers. The novella shows how The Odyssey is a male-focused text that has been read primarily without
consideration of how gender affects the poem and its characters.Therefore, Our focus of interest, in this
research, is to explore the attempt to break away from the male-oriented myths so as to rewrite female
experience. By rewriting the original work,The Penelopiad by Atwood does not only voice the genuine
female experience but also paves the way for the creation of new myths which would celebrate female
identity and freedom.it is also our intention to disscuss the portrayl of women within a number of important
ancient Greek myths and to focus on the examination of the rewritings of mythical female types under the
light of feminist ideologies of identity . In this respect, concentrated on the emergence of new woman types
out of old mythical female types, the study aimed to subvert the male-defined female character and her role
in myths, and expressed the transgression of stereotypical roles that are prescribed by men.
Description
Keywords
Keywords: Feminism, Greek mythology, Rewriting, The Penelopiad.