Demythologization of the Mythic Representation of “Woman”: Critical Reimagining of the Archaic Stories

Ancient Greek myths, as the architect of the patriarchal ideology, serve as a panorama of the reality, which women in all ages around the world face and are forced to experience. Based on the fossilized ideas of the archaic philosophy, the mythological narratives are at the center of a canon which reveals, internalizes and legitimates the binary oppositions between the sexes. Although myths are set in the past and thus seem to be bygone, the events and characters still mirror the modern age: nothing seems to have changed concerning the negative perception of womanhood. This essay does echo the feminist writer Cixous’s challenge to awaken all women to discover their own power by not yielding to man-made stories but writing their own realities. In this direction in this study, the classical myths are reimagined within the concept of “feminine writing” with the purpose of subverting the dynamics of patriarchy and phallocentrism.