Madeline Miller’s Circe: A Feminist Stylistic Approach

Abstract

The present study explores the representation of the woman’s character in literary works and also encompasses the retelling of Greek mythology from Madeline Miller’s female protagonist’s perspective. Gender stereotypes established by Greek mythology require that women must be submissive and marginalized. Those women characters that are not according to these stereotypes are termed as negative characters. Moreover, this representation of women’s stereotypical characterization is done through predisposed language which is informed by male-ruling sexist ideology. These linguistic choices need to be addressed through feminist stylistic analysis. The present study will analyze Circe’s character from the selected text Circe by Madeline Miller (2018) from the perspective of feminist stylistic analysis by employing Sara Mills’ model of feminism (1995). It will investigate how Madeline Miller converts Circe’s negative portrayal into a positive and empowered character in her retelling by challenging the stereotypical characterization of women. In particular, the study will look into Circe’s character at the level of discourse in order to present her as a positive and empowered character.