Murdering Medusa’s Myth

The following is from my dissertation surrounding morally grey characters and breaks down my creative process surrounding my piece ‘The Garden of Statues’.

I have an affinity with the Greek myth of Medusa; an infamous monster who turned men to stone has always been much more to me. Where others saw a monster, cold and cruel, I saw a woman, misunderstood. I found relatability. Being a black woman in a culture that favours eurocentric features, that does not offer the same kindness they offer others, that consistently makes a point of creating the distinction of blackness as otherness, I have habitually been made to feel like a monster. Often, I have felt that my curls are snakes, that my skin is scaled, that people expect me to turn them to stone. Beyond this, I have spent a lot of my life feeling misconceived for several other reasons and Medusa has always served as powerful symbolism for me. In this lies the attraction of a morally grey character, they speak to the parts of us that we do not always want to show the world. They demonstrate that the nature of being a person is multifaceted.

To explore what I have learnt about morally grey characters, I decided to put a new perspective on the story of Medusa. The aim of the piece was not to end up redeeming or vilifying Medusa but instead to reintroduce her as someone complex, a victim of circumstance, as well as a killer. 

Because the story of Medusa is so famous, the challenge was taking the widely accepted view of her as a clear villain and muddying the waters. To do this, I decided to use one of the most humanising emotions possible, love. There is a warmth in love that makes us look at people differently. So, in this story, we follow Medusa as she falls in love with a blind woman named Gaia. The first-person perspective of Medusa in this piece served to paint the picture of a woman treated badly by the world - specifically men – and gives us a deeper insight into how it has affected her and consequentially how she views herself. It also defamiliarises the reader from the original perspective of a hero coming to murder a monster. 

From the beginning, Medusa’s disdain for men and lack of remorse for killing is made clear: “Men have always been a means to an end for me”. Medusa views the stone corpses as nothing other than decoration, “Every man is a new art piece to accompany the vines". The reasoning behind her resentment of men is referenced subtly, with mentions of the violence she has suffered at their hands: ‘they come, they seek to conquer". This reasoning makes her hate understandable but does not justify her killing. Notably, the story takes place in Medusa’s garden. This contrast of life and death, quite literally with the plants growing around the statues, symbolises the nature of Medusa, past and present. The plants are given life by Medusa, given structure and a home amongst the lives she has taken, showing she is capable of both. 

The unexpected appearance of a woman on her island is the turning point for her character. Here we see Medusa differently as her history is brought into the picture, "A woman like I used to be. A beautiful woman". Medusa’s backstory can generate a lot of empathy as she was a victim of sexual assault at the hands of the God Poseidon and punished by Athena, who forced her to become the gorgon we now know her as. Her origin story is only hinted at in this piece, "a God whose lust was stronger than my cries for help", as while it explains, it does not excuse her desire to kill men. The split nature of her previous self and present self clash as she debates what to do with the woman, the current self wanting to turn the woman to stone so she can keep her forever, but the woman she used to be urging her to keep the woman safe: "A part of me hopes she might catch my eyes. She would be the most beautiful of my statues… The part of me that is reminiscent of who I used to be… intervenes". Upon discovering the woman is blind and therefore cannot be turned to stone, we see the impact of Medusa’s trauma in her reaction. She immediately assumes this woman has been sent to kill her, like all the men that have come before.

Medusa lies to Gaia, creating a fake persona, Clio, based on who she was before she was cursed. She does this because she is not proud of who she has become: "I get to exist as who I was, not who I am". Gaia and Clio live the life Medusa has wanted all along, one where she is capable of love and does not have to hurt anyone. We learn of Gaia’s background, of her father who tries to force her into marriages she does not want, which serves Medusa’s motivation to keep her safe on the island from yet another man. Medusa’s love for Gaia is shown to be raw and real "I do not tell her of how I can barely call my heart my own because it is so full of her". This love shows that though she is a killer, she is not void of humanity and emotion, she is not a monster. Her arc could continue toward redemption, but since the aim is to keep her morally grey, I had Medusa reflect on what this new life means. She thinks about whether she could truly be ‘Clio’, about whether Gaia’s literal and metaphorical blindness to her crimes absolves her of them. Despite genuinely wanting to be Clio, she concludes that she still feels no remorse for the lives she has taken. She views her killing as necessary for her survival, stating she had remorse "before (she) understood what would happen… if (she) had let them live". Moreover, Medusa’s resentment has reached a place where she wants to harm the men that come to her island. Here lies the greyness of her morality, her ability to love and care directly combatting her want for violence and revenge.

Medusa confesses to Gaia that she is in love, yet, she believes Gaia could not truly love her after she admits to herself that she can never really be Clio. Gaia reveals that she has known about Medusa’s true identity the whole time, but loves her nonetheless. At this moment, Medusa stops trying to solidify an identity as either before or after her curse. Instead, she chooses to be who she is with Gaia: "I am not Clio nor Medusa, nor priestess nor gorgon. I am hers, she is mine".

The story culminates in Medusa’s cave. Upon being awoken, Medusa is forced to face the reflection of herself that she has been avoiding the whole time in the shield of Perseus, who then beheads her. In this ending, I wanted to summarise Medusa’s characterisation: "the sword cut through muscle and fibre and life and love. Men have always been a means to an end for me."

Referring to Medusa as muscle and fibre makes the physical act of violence she is enduring real, but also calls back to times when she has been viewed as only a body, like when Poseidon assaulted her or when men have come to kill her. Then moving to "life and love", we honour the fact she was a person with emotion, allowing us to view her, and her story, as dynamic.

Medusa’s death is the inevitable part of her story that everyone knows. Her background is often unknown or misunderstood, but her death is where readers unite. I included her death in this piece to link it back to the canon of her original myth and show that her view of kill or be killed when it came to men, while indicative of her trauma, was ultimately correct. 

Putting the research I have done around morally grey characters into practice revealed to me the importance of having a set intention for the arc of the character, as well as how to balance the redeeming and condemning attributes in a way that suits this arc. How a backstory is layered into a piece is also vital, as all of these aspects can make or break a characterisation.