MEDUSA

Medusa



Medusa

Medusa was a Greek legendary feminine character. She was a hideous character, so hideous in fact that when somebody might look at her they might convert into stone. She was decapitated by the hero Perseus, who afterward used her head as a weapon in anticipation of giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. (Randolph, 1995)

Stories of Medusa

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers pictured Medusa and her sisters as beings born of gruesome form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envision her as a being both good-looking as well as frightening.

In a late version of the Medusa myth, Medusa was initially a beautiful maiden, "the envious aspiration of many authors, but when the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon raped her in temple of Athena, the furious goddess converted her beautiful hair to snakes and she made her face so dreadful to take a look at that only a glance of it might convert a man into stone.

Later Medusa's mythology was re modified as a jealous and suspicious woman, but when she was assaulted by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the angry deity converted her looks into monstrous and her long beautiful hairs to snakes. In the preponderance of the versions of the story, while Medusa was expectant by Poseidon, she was guillotined in her sleep by the hero Perseus. With assistance from Athena and Hermes, who gave him winged sandals, Hades' cap of disappearance, a sword, and a mirror shield, he won his mission. The hero slide Medusa by seeing at her mirror image in the shield instead of straight at her to avoid being converted into stone. When the hero cut Medusa's head, from her neck two progeny coiled forward: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor which afterward served the hero exercising the golden sword. (Seelig, 2002)

Once she was a good-looking young woman with beautiful long hairs, but when Athena was angered by her she took away her beauty from her converted her beautiful long curls into snakes. Medusa's new persona was so horrifying that if somebody dared to even look at her, became made up of stone. (Randolph, 1995)

The face of Medusa was still very beautiful but it was the profound grief and the hanging snakes over her head that frightened the viewer that they might not stand a single glance at her. She had these looks of a monster in the Greek mythology that made her a renowned tragic character who dared to contend against a goddess Athena.

Even though these are both different accounts of the Medusa myth, both say Medusa was once beautiful but terrible events, one man related the other to do with female competition caused her to become the ugly and terrifying monster most people know her as.

Feminism

From 20th century, the authors re-imagined Medusa's looks in poetry and prose. The assault on Medusa in the temple of Athena was seen as a probable example of violence against ...