Stone Blind

The sea goddess Ceto and her daughters, the Gorgons and Graiai, are considered monsters in Greek mythology. They are either old gods or inhuman creatures who physically differ from the human-like gods of the Olympian pantheon, with Stone Blind’s protagonist, Medusa, and her Gorgon sisters, Sthenno and Euryale, wielding snake hair. The novel seeks to deconstruct the physicality of monstrosity with such characters: The Gorgons are powerful women, which makes them threatening to toxic men who seek to control women. In Zeus’s patriarchy, Sthenno and Euryale’s unwillingness to tolerate Poseidon’s predation makes them “monsters.” Despite their unconventional features, the Gorgons prove more humane than the Olympians, loving their mortal sister Medusa unconditionally. Medusa herself remains compassionate even after being wronged by Poseidon, Athene, and Perseus. Overall, the Gorgon sisters challenge conventionally attractive characters like Perseus, who embodies true monstrosity with his cruelty. Toward the end of the novel, the Medusa-Narrator, horrified that she was weaponized against her mother Ceto, stresses the unknown as monstrous to Perseus, “and any monster needs killing” (332).

Throughout the novel, Perseus faces traditional monsters and proves the most monstrous: He throws away the Graiai’s shared body parts, and upon seeing Ceto poised to kill