Kristen’s Reviews > Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths > Status Update

Penelope - This really should have gone earlier in the book considering how much emphasis is put on Penelope. I find it interesting, and frustrating, that a good portion of this, while technically being about Penelope, is more focused on how she is perceived rather than focusing on her actual appearances. Which is annoying. We know how she's perceived. We're here because we want to know more.

Medea - I did really enjoy this portion. I find Medea so interesting as a character, because there is no denying that she is awful (killing her children is hard to defend) but also… aside from the child killing I think she had a good point. And the gods seemed to think so to. Men so often get away with being terrible awful creatures while women suffer, so seeing her get away with murder? Amazing.

Phaedra - This whole section was a miss for me. I didn’t know anything about Phaedra going in, though I recognize Ariadne. Her story, no matter how you tell it, paints everyone as awful. But more than that this portion feels SO preachy. We travel off the path to complain about Persephone and just spend pages going off about historical sanitizing. That’s important but not what I thought I was getting.

Eurydice - I’m torn, because I love her story, and it was very interesting seeing the evolution of it and where it is mentioned, but when it comes to the end, where we’re talking about what Eurydice wants? The only depictions of her are ones in which she hates Orpheus? That feels hamfisted to me.

The Amazons - most of this was very interesting, the telling of tales of the three great Amazons, how they work as a team where men tend to work alone, and examining how the idea of the amazons changed from Ancient Greece to Wonder Woman, however she lost me with Buffy. While I might concede season sevens arc, the show describe in the beginning does not sound like an Amazon. Just like a typical hero show.

Medusa - As fascinating as I find Medusa, this portion of the book DRAGGED. I feel like this section focused so little on Medusa herself, and instead spent it's time waxing poetic about Perseus, and making side trips to talk about Midas and Judith, in an attempt to draw a parallel that didn't land and was unnecessary. Despite painting her as a feminist icon, I don't think this was about her at all.

Helen - This portion didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know about Helen. I think of all the women we do hear about from Greek Mythology Helen is the most talked about. I did always think it unfair that she bears the blunt of the blame for the war when her husband and his brother were the ones who said “Aw hell naw” and called in all those debts.

Jocasta - As the author notes i don’t think Jocasta was ever discussed when we learned about Oedipus in school, though she is a central figure of the story. I found it fascinating that in almost all other depictions of the myth in ancient times she was the more prom image figure than, as the author put it, “that man who answered a riddle that one time”. I always assumed there was more to him.

Pandora - A lot of interesting information here. I knew about the box actually being a jar and that she was sent to punish Prometheus and human kind, but I found it really interesting that the jar is actually an after thought in most of the earliest texts and only becomes a focus long after the fact. A Pandora retelling would be really interesting.