In her 1972 essay, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” Adrienne Rich calls attention to what she deems a collective awakening: the exhilarating realisation that it is time for women to find their own voice, to become the creators that they have long been restricted from being and to write themselves anew. Rich’s essay, described by Harriet M. MacMillan as a “call to arms” (31), explores how the act of re-vision, “of entering an old text from a new critical direction” (18), can serve as an act of radical liberation for women from the “self-destructiveness of male-dominated society” (18). In other words, a feminist revision of past writing like myth or folklore, so deeply embedded in the system of patriarchal oppression, can allow women to free themselves from this same patriarchal discourse. Two contemporary short stories, “Galatea” by Madeline Miller and “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado, both fall into the category of feminist mythological retellings. “Galatea” explores the afterlife of Ovid’s “Pygmalion,” told from the perspective of Galatea, the living woman created from one of Pygmalion’s sculptures. In comparison, “The Husband Stitch” evokes the centuries-old folktale of the girl with a ribbon tied around her neck, this time from the perspective of the girl herself. Thus, both stories share a similar methodology in that they adopt a first-person perspective of a female character who is otherwise silenced or forgotten in the original tale.
However, according to Diane Purkiss, women’s rewriting of myth is a challenging task, one that risks “writing our way deeper and deeper into [the patriarchy]” (447-448) rather than writing our way out of it. As Roland Barthes argues, myth works by transforming history into nature—it is a distortion that compels the reader to understand the myth’s concept as naturally generated (240). As a result, a feminist rewriting of myth can risk further naturalizing the mythology itself, strengthening the myth’s power and misogynistic ideology. Thus, the question that arises is, how can rewritings of myth successfully become feminist revisions? While there is no perfect revisionist methodology, Miller’s and Machado’s short stories are prime examples of how women’s rewriting can effectively challenge the patriarchal and misogynistic representations of their original tales. Both “Galatea” and “The Husband Stitch,” in exploring themes of female sexuality and desire, patriarchal violence, and female community and collectivity, establish their place as acts of female mythmaking, expanding what Barthes calls “the halo of virtualities” and asserting a radical potential for feminist futurity. Both texts, whether directly or indirectly, challenge the literal process of writing myth, thus separating myth from nature and destabilizing its patriarchal portrayals.
In her postgraduate dissertation, MacMillan offers a list of ten theses that, in her opinion, characterize a feminist rewriting of mythology. While not a prescriptive list or a checklist, her theses help elucidate certain methods that allow revisionist mythology to successfully become a feminist endeavor. One such method, MacMillan asserts, is that a mythic retelling must be “self-consciously literary” (53), engaging in what she calls ‘metamythmaking.’ In other words, it must consciously acknowledge “the process of its construction, its transmission and place within a canon” (MacMillan 53). In doing so, feminist rewritings, rather than being limited to a revision of merely the individual myth itself, can engage with the wider discourse of mythology, an endeavor that, according to Purkiss, is essential for feminist retellings. Feminist revisions, she writes, “can extend to complex engagements with the very place of myth in literature, the place of the woman writer in relation to those discourses, and the displacement of myth as a buried truth of culture” (Purkiss 445). Therefore, challenging the discourse of myth allows feminist revisions to avoid further strengthening their source myth and perpetuating its oppression of women. In fact, when a rewriting brings the discourse of myth to the fore, it enables the rewriting to decenter the power of the myth, thus destabilizing its patriarchal values.
Indeed, an essential feature of both “Galatea” and “The Husband Stitch” that allows them to be successful feminist revisions is their reliance on the palimpsestic nature of myth. This reliance establishes a self-conscious awareness of the literariness of their myths. Traditionally, myth itself is an additive process in which later retellings join with the prior ones to construct the myth as it is known today. This palimpsestic nature, however, is often forgotten, with all the versions, as Machado writes, “running together like raindrops in a pond…[with] no way to tell them apart” (16). This “running together” enables a myth to appear as the final, authoritative tale with a singular, definitive voice, thus perpetuating masculine discourse as the ultimate truth. Therefore, by foregrounding myth’s palimpsestic nature, feminist retellings counteract these homogenizing forces and challenge the perception of myth as the definitive story.
Miller’s text, “Galatea,” is set ten years after the original story’s ending. While Ovid concludes his myth with a supposedly happy marriage, in Miller’s work, Galatea is consciously aware of her husband’s patriarchal abuse. Trapped in a clinical setting by her husband following her attempt to evade his control, Galatea, witty and clever, knows what she must do to escape and save her daughter from her husband’s further abuse. In her work, Liedeke Plate makes a distinction between two forms of women’s rewriting: the first—which risks actualizing the cautionary warnings of Purkiss—aims for closure, attempting to demythologize the story it rewrites by “explaining it away and substituting another” (31); in contrast, the second, which depends upon the open-ended potential of myth, is never a final telling, but “merely a moment in a cultural process of storytelling that is ongoing” (31). By writing an extension or an afterlife rather than an adaptation of Ovid’s tale, Miller aligns with Plate’s second method for mythic retelling. As her work is an addition to the original story, Miller acknowledges myth’s accretive nature. In doing so, she utilizes this palimpsestic character of mythic creation to empower her version to become a valid part of the ongoing storytelling process. Miller thus asserts her story’s place within the canon and destabilizes the perception that Ovid’s tale is the one ultimate truth, ultimately destabilizing its patriarchal ideology.
Similarly, “The Husband Stitch” also addresses myth's palimpsestic nature. However, unlike Miller’s text, which takes a more subtle approach, Machado’s engagement with metamythmaking is forthright and overt. While the main narrative rewrites the enduring urban legend about the girl with a ribbon around her neck, the story is not limited to this singular source myth. In fact, multiple feminist revisions of popular folktales and urban legends are woven together by the narrator, who, as she herself asserts, “[has] always been a teller of stories” (Machado 8). By placing the protagonist—the girl with the green ribbon—as a self-conscious storyteller, Machado highlights the process of myth’s construction, thus overtly participating in metamythmaking and revealing myth’s palimpsestic nature. For example, when the narrator shares the tale about the girl dared by her peers to visit a graveyard after dark, she notes that, while “[s]ome storytellers say that [the girl] picked the grave at random” (Machado 10), she believes the girl purposefully “selected a very old one, her choice tinged by…the latent belief that if she were wrong,…a newly dead corpse would be more dangerous than one centuries gone” (10). The narrator explicitly demonstrates how multiple storytellers create multiple versions of a myth; consequently, there is never one absolute version of a mythic story, and thus, there can never be one truly authoritative tale. As a result, Machado is able to establish the validity of her revisions and assert their place within the canon. In fact, after telling her version of the story where the wife cuts out her own liver to feed her husband, the protagonist declares that it “may not be the version of the story you’re familiar with. But I assure you, it’s the one you need to know” (24). Once again, the narrator demonstrates the multiplicity of myth both in voices and versions. Nevertheless, she fiercely advocates for the importance and legitimacy of her particular feminist retelling.
Additionally, through their involvement in metamythmaking, Miller’s and Machado’s stories effectively expand “the halo of virtualities” around the myth, asserting a radical potential for feminist futurity. In Barthes’ novel titled Mythologies, he argues that, around the final meaning of myth, there always remains “a halo of virtualities where other possible meanings are floating: the meaning can almost always be interpreted” (243). It is this halo of virtualities that MacMillan contends feminist revisions must harness, expanding this realm of possible meanings to make space for feminist interpretations (53, 61). In fact, rather than outrightly rejecting or reshaping the original legends, both Miller and Machado reinterpret their source myths to expose the patriarchal and misogynistic ideology within them. Thus, they forever haunt the original mythology with a feminist presence. The most indicative way both revisions accomplish this is through their representations of female sexuality and desire.
While Miller’s work does not directly alter the original myth, Miller does draw from Ovid’s text to write “Galatea,” revealing new ways of thinking about Ovid’s work. In Ovid’s myth, the storyline commences with Pygmalion’s decision to remain unmarried due to his disgust with the Propoetides’ involvement in prostitution, which he deems a shameful fault of the female mind (Ovid 81-83). His disgust inaugurates the rest of the story, with Pygmalion falling in love with the idealized female sculpture he carved. In her narrative, Miller directly gestures towards the beginning of Ovid’s text, with Galatea remembering how “[she] had once asked [her husband] how old he meant for [her] to be, [and] he had said, ‘A virgin’” (9). At this moment, Miller reveals how Pygmalion’s infatuation with his sculpture stems not from love or admiration, but from the misogynistic belief that ties a woman’s value to her virginity and supposed purity. Furthermore, in Miller’s narrative, Galatea recalls how her husband had rubbed at the bruises on her body after physically abusing her as if they were stains, saying that the color was perfect, that she made the rarest canvas (Miller 14). Once again, this narration directly recognizes the original myth in which Pygmalion grasps his sculpture yet stops out of fear of leaving bruises on her limbs (Ovid 83). In Miller’s tale, Pygmalion is no longer afraid to bruise Galatea. From a doting infatuation with her idealized body as a statue of his creation to an aggressive harassment of her real, fleshly human body, the shift in Pygmalion’s behavior expands the possible meanings inscribed to the original myth to include a feminist viewpoint. Galatea’s body, no longer made of carved stone, begins to deviate from the idealized, pure figure that Pygmalion had constructed from ivory. No longer “yielding to his art” (Miller 11), Galatea’s body transcends the bounds of his masculine mastery; consequently, Pygmalion resorts to violence to try and keep her body under his control. Bruises become acceptable as long as they result from his own work, signaling her subservience to him. In short, by drawing on Ovid’s myth to write her own, Miller is able to emphasize and expose the original myth’s oppressive and patriarchal ideology.
In contrast to Miller’s text, which serves as a sequel to the original myth rather than a direct rewrite, Machado’s work does alter its source myths. Yet, rather than righting the wrongs of the original legends, the alterations made by Machado foreground the patriarchal ideology within them. The most poignant example is her revision of the “real classic” (Machado 28) about the hook-handed murderer. The original myth is often read as a moral story criticizing teenage sex. The hook-handed madman threatens the couple because of their deviant sexual behaviour; they are saved from his wrath because the girlfriend prevents them from engaging in anything further than making out. Machado, however, reframes this interpretation of the story. After the couple has already had sex, the radio announcement prompts the girl to want to leave. However, rather than angrily slamming on the gas when denied further sexual activity by the girlfriend—as told by most versions (Brunvand 51)—the boyfriend denies the girl’s worried request to leave, gaslighting her by asking “[d]on’t you trust me?” (Machado 29). The girlfriend reluctantly caves to his wishes to continue, but upon glancing out the window, sees the hook-handed killer waving at her, grinning (29). By shifting the boyfriend’s action from a frustrated flee from the scene to a gaslighting encounter with his girlfriend, Machado reimagines the story, showing how it is not the couple’s sexual activity that threatens their lives but rather the boyfriend’s dismissive behavior. Furthermore, it is at this climactic moment that the protagonist stops the story, apologizing for forgetting the rest (29). By rejecting a definitive conclusion, Machado calls the predetermined ending—where the boyfriend and the girlfriend make it home alive—into question. In doing so, she asserts that the dismissal of women at the hands of men can have real, life-threatening consequences for women. By keeping the ending open, Machado’s rewrite will forever haunt the tale of the hook-handed murderer. In other words, the story can no longer be read or rewritten without considering the boyfriend’s behavior and how it potentially affects the couple’s outcome.
Finally, both Miller’s and Machado’s writings serve as explorations of female community and collectivity. As MacMillan maintains, “the community’s advancement [must be] of paramount importance” (53); rewritings of myth should serve as essential tools to “interrogate the relationship between the individual and her community” (53). In both Miller’s and Machado’s stories, there is a recognition of shared female experience and knowledge. For instance, when Galatea must drink tea to induce an abortion, there is a brief moment where the nurse, attempting to console Galatea, divulges her own experience with abortion, saying that “[she] has done it, and look, [she] live[s]” (Miller 16). By acknowledging a collective experience between them, Miller renders the concept of shared female knowledge. Similarly, in Machado’s work, a moment between the protagonist and another woman acknowledging that their ribbon can be “such a bother” (27) displays another form of shared female experience. In fact, one of the most significant alterations made by Machado to the story about the girl with the ribbon around her neck is the inclusion of the ribbon not being a singular, unique experience for one woman but a collective, shared experience by all women. In Alvin Schwartz’s version of the original myth, titled “The Green Ribbon,” the protagonist is recognized as being “like all other girls, except for one thing” (15): the green ribbon she wears around her neck. In her version, Machado rejects this immediate separation between the protagonist and other women. Instead, the ribbon becomes a shared fact of female existence, with one woman having a red one tied around her ankle (Machado 22) and another having a pale yellow one around her finger (27). Furthermore, through the varied experience of the ribbon itself—with different colors and placements—Machado succinctly displays not just a general experience of womanhood but an intersectional one. Ultimately, both authors assert the importance of female community in rejecting a masculine-dominated society and advancing feminism.
In sum, Miller’s “Galatea” and Machado’s “The Husband Stitch” are successful feminist revisions of culturally significant mythology. Overall, both rewritings effectively challenge the masculine, patriarchal discourse of their source myths and the mythic corpus in general. Through an engagement in metamythmaking by emphasizing the palimpsestic nature of myth, Machado’s and Miller’s narratives challenge the authority and validity of the wider discourse of mythology, asserting the veracity of their stories and their deserved place within the canon. Furthermore, both revisions expand Barthes’ halo of virtualities to include a feminist interpretation of their original myths. Overall, one of the most potent effects of feminist rewritings, as MacMillan asserts, is their ability to “effect symbolic interpretations of myth in the future” (58). In other words, this lean towards the future is where feminist revisions truly enact the most cultural change. Ultimately, by asserting their place within the discourse of myth, “Galatea” and “The Husband Stitch” will leave a lasting presence on future interpretations of their source myths, and the patriarchal and misogynistic nature of stories like “Pygmalion” or “The Green Ribbon” will no longer be able to be ignored.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. “Part II: Myth Today.” Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers, Jonathan Cape Ltd.; Hill and Wang, 1972.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. W. W. Norton & Company, 1981.
Machado, Carmen Maria. “The Husband Stitch.” Her Body and Other Parties. E-book, Graywolf Press, 2017.
MacMillan, Harriet M. “The Stories We Tell Ourselves to Make Ourselves Come True”: Feminist Rewriting in the Canongate Myths Series. 2019. University of Edinburgh, PhD thesis. Edinburgh Research Archive, http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/420.
Miller, Madeline. “Galatea.” E-Book, HarperCollins, 2013.
Ovid. “Pygmalion.” Metamorphoses, Volume II: Books 9-15. Translated by Frank Justus Miller, revised by G. P. Goold, Harvard University Press, 1916, pp. 80-85. Loeb Classical Library 43, https://doi.org/10.4159/DLCL.ovid-metamorphoses.1916.
Plate, Liedeke. Transforming Memories in Contemporary Women’s Rewriting. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1057/9780230294639.
Purkiss, Diane. “Women’s Rewriting of Myth.” The Feminist Companion to Mythology, edited by Carolyne Larrington, Pandora Press, 1992, pp. 441-57.
Rich, Adrienne. “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.” College English, vol. 34, no. 1, National Council of Teachers of English, 1972, pp. 18-30, https://www.jstor.org/stable/375215.
Schwartz, Alvin. “The Green Ribbon.” In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. E-book, HarperCollins Publishers, 1984, re-illustrated 2017, pp. 15-19.
Comments