Perception of the Gorgons as monsters, both in antiquity and in later reception, comes as a result of these early literary and artistic representations that effectively “other” the sisters’ appearances. They are fearsome, dangerous, and—despite having the shape of women—inhuman, which makes them monstrous.
“I always think of the Sphinx as the monster who’s come up with the perfect response to mansplaining—when men won’t listen to her riddle properly and try and explain what they think she’s said, she just eats them! Oedipus defeats her by actually listening to her properly, which is a salutary reminder of how rare that quality is in the heroes of Greek myth.”
For one of our first posts, we are very pleased to present this short story by scholar and fiction author Mercedes Aguirre Castro. The story, a modern re-working of a three-thousand-year-old tale, first appeared in its original Spanish as “La escena del crimen” in her edited book Tras las huellas de los mitos: voces femeninas… Read more “Crime Scene”, by Mercedes Aguirre Castro