Rewriting Kassandra: Christa Wolf's re-visioning of the myth

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Christa Wolf's re-reading and rewriting of the Cassandra myth in her novel Kassandra. Her Kassandra (the German spelling) differs radically from the character Aeschylus had created; he regarded Cassandra as a prophet of doom, romanticising the Trojan War and the male protagonists such as Achilles and Agamemnon. Therefore, Wolf deconstructs and reconstructs the prehistoric myth in such a way that blatant patriarchal misrepresentations of the female are made evident. Ultimately, Wolf also exposes the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as security state through writing about the corruption in Troy. Wolf calls herself a ‘daughter of Kassandra’, and the meaning is two-tiered: first, like Kassandra, she did not want to acknowledge that the GDR had turned into a security state (she was under surveillance by the Stasi for years) just as Kassandra did not want to acknowledge the truth about corrupt Troy. Second, Wolf regards herself as having to tell Kassandra's truth centuries later...