54 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer SaintAriadne
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Medusa
Content Warning: This section features mentions of rape.
Early in the story, Ariadne’s handmaiden tells her the story of Medusa: a beautiful maiden with glorious hair who vowed to remain chaste and rebuffed any potential suitors. One day, the god Poseidon assaulted her in Athena’s sacred temple. Athena, a “virgin” goddess, was enraged and punished Medusa for Poseidon’s actions; she took Medusa’s glorious hair and replaced it with living snakes, giving her a face so hideous it would turn onlookers to stone. Perseus would eventually kill Medusa, but before this, she wrought widespread destruction: “[She] rampaged, leaving statues wherever she went […] She took her vengeance a hundred times over” (14).
Ariadne’s understanding of Medusa’s story coincides with her growing awareness of her own precarious position as a woman in her society. Upon hearing the tale, Ariadne notes the parallels between Medusa’s story and her mother Pasiphae’s story: Both were punished for a man’s crimes. However, where Pasiphae faded away in shame, Medusa wore her rage openly and struck fear in the hearts of men. Ariadne resolves that she will take the latter approach should she suffer the same fate, making Medusa a symbol of resistance rather than passivity in the face of mistreatment. Ariadne conjures up her image to give her strength and courage to face her circumstances: “Her snakes hissed and spat and contorted about her head, striking fear into the hearts of so-called heroes as they cringed away. I could be the same. My rage would be my shield” (133).
Given what Medusa means to her, Ariadne finds Perseus’s weaponization of Medusa’s gaze particularly repellent—yet another instance of a man exploiting a woman for fame and power, even after her death at his hands. Although Ariadne herself dies after glimpsing Medusa’s face on Perseus’s shield, Medusa’s deadly gaze ultimately brings true freedom to the women of Naxos. When Ariadne is petrified and dies, the grief-stricken Dionysus makes peace with Perseus, preventing his army from advancing on the island, and Dionysus himself returns to Mount Olympus, leaving Naxos to women and children only.
The Ocean
Ariadne describes the ocean both as something that calms and comforts her and as something powerful and dangerous, often using it as a metaphor for women’s relationships with the men in whom they put their trust. Before Theseus’s betrayal, she compares him to a calm sea, finding comfort and stability in his presence. She imagines him taking her away from Crete like “a surge of cool green water lifting [her], bearing [her] away” (77), but in her vision, the currents drag her away to an isolated beach, completely alone. The sea, like Theseus, becomes the very thing that carries her far away from her home, from her sister, and from everything she knows. Likewise, the novel opens with the story about Scylla trusting King Minos only to be drowned by him in the “tumultuous water.”
The ocean thus serves as a motif developing the Status and Agency of Women in Ancient Greece and, more specifically, women’s relationships with men. The ocean’s currents, which Ariadne describes being “carried away” by, suggest women’s lack of agency: They have little choice but to go wherever men command them to, forced to flow with the currents of men’s decisions.
Palaces
Ariadne and Phaedra grow up as princesses in the palace of Knossos, but theirs is a less-than-idyllic upbringing under the rule of the cold and ruthless King Minos and with the deadly Minotaur’s presence beneath the palace. Knossos is a particularly oppressive environment—both Ariadne and Phaedra dream of leaving it behind, and Daedalus is a glorified prisoner as long as Minos desires to keep the secrets of the Labyrinth near—but palaces more generally represent the restrictive and oppressive system under which women live. Like the female characters’ relationships with the men, palaces provide relative safety and stability but also stifle women’s freedom and autonomy.
