Natalie Haynes - Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths

 Natalie Haynes. Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths. (United Kingdom: Picador, 2020). 

In her introduction, Haynes argues that in the contemporary era, we have ‘made space in our storytelling to rediscover women who have been lost or forgotten. ‘They are not villains, victims, wives and monsters: they are people’ (p. 3). The text itself is dedicated to revisiting the women from Greek myth beyond their symbolic, essentialised roles. 

Haynes retells the story of Pandora, Jocasta, Helen, Medusa, the Amazons, Clytemnestra, Eurydice, Phaedra, Medea, and Penelope. This book tracks the stories of these female characters from ancient sources, including pictorial representations as well as ancient literature, and explores the ways their narratives have been used to perpetuate negative stereotypes of women. The book applies a critical approach to the way received understandings of the stories of these characters have shifted according to mistranslations, misinterpretations, socio-political or religious interests, and accidents of history. She refers to the modern and current cultural importance of reinterpreting stories from a feminist perspective.

 Haynes is currently writing a follow-up book, about the goddesses.

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