Lena Singh, Period 6, 5/16/23

 Modern Mythology 2023

Lena Singh, Period 6, 05/16/23

Honestly, I can’t say I completely saw it coming, but I did foresee her future just a tiny bit. It was a beautiful novel in some respects, confusing, as well as flawed in some respects. Circe is a woman who I thought initially, was foolish, but she was just young. I thought she was soft, but she was just trying to be kind. I thought she was going to have a horrible ending because women normally do, but she didn’t. 

We started with getting introduced to Circe as this outsider in her own family. I did feel hurt for her initially, but ultimately thought that she had to toughen up. When she helped Prometheus, I immediately knew she wasn’t a bully like the rest of her family members, but had a hunch of what her character development would look like. They say you grow the most with people around you, but Circe grew in loneliness. She owned up to her mistakes, tried to make up for them, and it introduced her mature side that was hidden behind the emotional one. Circe is inquisitive, changing, confident yet kind at the same time. When she turned Scylla into a monster, it showed the pitting of women against each other, despite the fact that Scylla was already a “beautiful” monster. Despite Pasiphae being a complete monster to Circe, she still lends a hand in her childbirth to perhaps fulfill her own agenda. Through learning that Hermes is only entertaining her, she demonstrated self-awareness and when she had the encounter with Trygon, she showed us bravery. By protecting her son, she was a mother and when letting Telemachus in, she was just a damaged human who needed someone to lean on. She let him in, despite being betrayed by men throughout her life. Something tells me that the way Telemachus stood apart from his destiny just as she did, they were meant to be. Maybe Circe knew that in a way. There are many sides to Circe and they all unveil, chapter at a time. Even when in most cases, Gods are not multi-dimensional. 

There are a lot of romantic relationship dynamics in this story. We have Helios and Perse; Jason and Medea; Pasiphae and Minos; Circe with Glaucous, Daedalus, Odysseus, Telemachus. They all have women that eventually have to subdue their powers in some way or another. They all have mean women. Perse is so desperate for her husband, despite his countless affairs and is able to do nothing about it. Medea is manipulative yet powerful, but is obsessively in love with Jason who doesn't truly care for her. Pasiphae is a monstrous, attention-seeking woman, stuck with Minos who seeks to tame her. And then we have Circe who's had her fair share of lovers, but in this case she becomes someone else for them and they eventually leave her. She adapts to their personality and becomes what she thinks they want her to be. It conveyed the fact that all her life, she just wanted to be loved. All the women are emphasized - flawed or not - while the men play a side character, a role that they often don’t play. The relationships show the tragedy of love, Circe being the only one who gets a "happy" ending.

I definitely think more interactions with women other than her sister and mother would've been beneficial to show Circe’s development. Penelope does appear in the end, but their interactions are short and sweet. It seems that Penelope only brings out the mourning or kindness inside Circe. Medea only made her feel more lonely and Pasiphae makes her feel as worse as she possibly can. We could've seen more of her mother and how the hate between them develops. We could've had more of Penelope and how their friendship comes to be. Their impact is not established as much as I would've liked it to be. The beginning of the novel was also very slow for me to the point where I almost regretted reading the novel. That is until Aeetes drops his bombshell. I didn't expect her to end up with a man again, honestly. After all her horrible encounters, I thought she would run away with Penelope or at least live peacefully on Aeaea. But I understand that, that was not her destiny. Her language and retelling of the Greek main characters/Gods was very insightful and makes you realize not everyone is as they seem, especially from a woman's point of view.  

Circe ends up finding her voice when Athena comes to the island for Telemachus and the loom she weaves of her identity, comes to an end. Circe spent much of her youth turning people into monsters, revealing who they truly were. That men are pigs, nymphs like Scylla are just serpents, and men like Glaucous are greedy self-proclaimed Gods who will never be satisfied. But she simply couldn't figure out who she truly was. Even if she didn't, by the end of the novel, from the parts of her we got to know, Circe is someone who heals just as quickly as she breaks.