‘Girl against the world’ : Antigone’s afterlives in contemporary women’s myth writing

Abstract

Adaptations of Greek myth by contemporary women writers is a rapidly expanding genre, and critical attention to this literary phenomenon is in its early stages. This paper functions as an in-depth case study of a single myth in prose adaptations. The diversity in adaptations of Antigone illustrates the generative potential in retelling myths– myths are malleable, and one myth can be appropriated for a multitude of purposes. Particular attention is paid in this paper to how the revolutionary aspects of Antigone’s myth are repurposed for 21st century audiences, and it is the ultimate goal of this paper to demonstrate that to rewrite Antigone’s myth is itself feminist activism.