Ariadne

Phaedra is Ariadne’s younger sister, daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae, and the novel’s other narrator. Part 1 shows the girls to have a close relationship, with Phaedra sticking close by her sister’s side and demonstrating willingness to follow her anywhere. In Parts 2 and 3, Saint offers a glimpse into Phaedra’s point of view as she deals with the aftermath of Theseus’s defeat of the Minotaur and navigates her new role as his wife and as queen of Athens. She emerges as a foil to her sister: more willful and headstrong, as evidenced by her active role in ruling Athens upon becoming its queen.

Phaedra’s experiences of marriage and motherhood likewise contrast with Ariadne’s. Growing up in the palace of Knossos, Phaedra always dreamed of leaving Crete behind but gets her wish in the form of a loveless marriage to the man who betrayed her sister. She is equally resentful of her children, who remind her of their father and impinge on her hard-won independence. Nevertheless, there are similarities between the sisters. Though Phaedra seems more skeptical and pragmatic than Ariadne where men are concerned—she perceives the weaknesses in Ariadne and Dionysus’s relationship long before Ariadne herself does—Phaedra is also rather quick to put her trust in the men around her. Years after Theseus’s betrayal of her, Phaedra nevertheless risks everything for a chance at escape with his son, Hippolytus. That even Phaedra ultimately looks to a man for hope says at least as much about her world as it does about her character. In a world where women must rely upon the relative security that relationships with men provide, Hippolytus represents Phaedra’s only chance of escaping a life that she resents.

Theseus is a hero from Greek mythology whose adventures and exploits are the subjects of countless tales and myths. The most famous of these is his defeat of the Minotaur, which features prominently in Ariadne. However, Saint offers a more complicated view of the legendary hero, downplaying his “heroic” actions and shedding light on the parts of his story that show his willingness to use, harm, and discard women. This is evident both in his actions—e.g., his callous abandonment of Ariadne after she helps him navigate the Labyrinth—and in secondhand accounts of his attempted abduction of Persephone and his rape of Hippolyta. Thus, he largely functions as the novel’s antagonist.

The novel introduces Theseus through the eyes of the young and naive Ariadne. To her, Theseus is a selfless and courageous young man, determined to rid the world of evil and willing to throw himself into harm’s way for the good of his people. As the novel progresses, however, it quickly becomes clear that Theseus’s heroic image is merely a façade, and his seemingly brave and selfless deeds are first and foremost a means of attaining personal glory, even at the expense of others. Though Ariadne’s and Phaedra’s perspectives on Theseus change over time, he himself is a static character whose society enables his exploitative behavior.

Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, pleasure, and ecstasy. In mythology as well as in Ariadne, Dionysus symbolizes liberation and freedom through ritual “madness,” dance, and intoxication; his female followers are known as maenads. In the novel, these young women flock to Dionysus to seek freedom from the oppressive men in their lives, and life in his cult (a neutral term in the context of ancient Greece) is peaceful and joyful. He also shows kindness to Ariadne after Theseus abandons her, making her the guardian of his island and developing a trusting and largely harmonious relationship with her. Ariadne bears him five sons, and she initially take comfort in knowing he lacks the cruel and callous nature of other gods or of so-called “heroes” like Theseus; in contrast to his fellow Olympians, Dionysus expresses a preference for the humbler pleasures of ordinary human life.

There is a contradiction inherent in his worship, however. He seeks to free women through wine and ritual, but as the novel progresses, he becomes increasingly hungry for more adoring followers. By the novel’s end, he has no qualms about gaining worshippers through force. The liberation he offers is similarly double-edged, as the freedom from societal restraints that the maenads find so exhilarating culminates in the violent deaths of innocents when the Argive women murder their children. His final actions in the novel—transforming Ariadne into a star and giving Naxos to the maenads—suggest that he is remorseful for his descent into pride and cruelty, but he remains a morally ambiguous figure.

A product of the union between queen Pasiphae and Poseidon’s sacred bull, the Minotaur is a part bull, man who lives in a labyrinth beneath the palace of Knossos. When he is born, his mother calls him Asterion (“star”), but upon witnessing Asterion’s power and strength, King Minos names him after himself and uses him as a display of power.

Though Ariadne views the Minotaur as her brother, to others he is nothing more than a monster: For King Minos, the Minotaur is a tool, and for Theseus, the Minotaur’s slaying is revenge against Minos and a way to increase his own fame. Nevertheless, while Ariadne and Pasiphae’s attempts to civilize the Minotaur fail, Saint portrays the Minotaur sympathetically as an unwilling victim of men and gods’ petty rivalries and cruel, callous ways. Subjected to a life of isolation beneath the palace, the Minotaur himself suffers, but his existence also illustrates how women are punished for men’s actions; Pasiphae bears the shame of having birthed him, and she and Ariadne are tasked with his care.

The Minotaur also serves to complicate Ariadne’s notions of family and loyalty. On the one hand, she views the Minotaur as her brother and feels pity for him, yet she also recognizes that helping Theseus kill the Minotaur will ensure that no more children from Athens will be sacrificed.

King Minos is the ruthless, tyrannical ruler of the island of Crete. He rules through fear; the ferocious Minotaur that was meant to shame him becomes his greatest asset and his display of dominance. He functions as an antagonist, as both Ariadne and Phaedra resent and fear him, along with the citizens of Crete. He has also made an enemy of Athens—most notably, by demanding a yearly sacrifice of 14 Athenian youths to the Minotaur. Theseus’s defeat of the Minotaur humbles and weakens Minos, as does the escape of his inventor, Daedalus.

King Minos is the novel’s earliest example of how so-called “righteous men” use, maneuver, and discard women at will: He kills Scylla after she helps secure his victory against Megara and arranges an unwanted marriage for Ariadne. It is his slight against Poseidon that brings shame on Pasiphae and leads to the birth of the Minotaur, but he evades the consequences of his actions until his death at clever Daedalus’s hands.

Pasiphae is the wife of King Minos of Crete. She is the daughter of Helios, god of the sun. Ariadne recalls her childhood with her mother fondly, but after Pasiphae is cursed by the god Poseidon and brings her part human, part bull son into the world, Pasiphae becomes a shell of her radiant self. She is an early and prominent example of how women often bear the brunt of the transgressions of men, both in myth and reality. Pasiphae, however, continues this grisly cycle; using witchcraft, she curses King Minos so that every woman he has sex with dies painfully.

Even as the Minotaur grows into a monster and becomes impossible to contain, Pasiphae still views him as her son, showing the strength of her maternal feeling. She grieves when Theseus defeats him but is finally able to process and mourn what happened to her upon his death.