7 Circe: Feminism in the Greek Goddess-Witch – Mathea Tanner

Circe: Feminism in the Greek Goddess-Witch 

“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” This is the opening line of Madeline Miller’s Circe (3), and refers to the eponymous protagonist. What Circe is, as the story will tell, is a witch. Witchcraft across the ages has often been associated with evil, danger, and deception. Witches are common characters found in ancient Greek literature. Often, the portrayal of these goddess-witches is as conniving and petty creatures. However, as we will discuss in this paper, Madeline Miller’s Circe is a thoughtful and modern retelling of one of these characters. It is a story that treats the character with empathy and respect, and takes queues from modern witchcraft and feminism. In doing so, it places both the character Circe and her modern counterparts in an empowered new light.

The origin story of Circe comes from Homer’s The Odyssey. “I wanted to push back against Homer,” Madeline Miller said in an interview with Refinery29 conducted the year the novel published (Nicolaou 2018). It is important to understand the context Miller battled in rewriting the tale for a modern audience; Homer’s version of the events that took place on Circe’s island of Aiaia varies greatly from Miller’s. Homer’s tale is told from the viewpoint of the soldier and hero Odysseus. Descriptions of Circe focus on her attractiveness: fair hair, a “sweet voice” and skills as an enchantress (Homer 315). However, the character lacks dimension. She is a device to move the plot forward, turning Odysseus’ men into pigs with no known motivation, implying that she does so simply because she is a witch, and witches are tricksy creatures.

Miller’s novel goes deeper; she takes a relatively minor character from the original tale—Circe is only focused upon in book 10 of The Odyssey—and builds an entire world. This world is one where you ask why a witch such as herself might feel the need to turn men into pigs. In doing so, she expands to the more prescient question of why we view witches as untrustworthy and their magic as dangerous. Several themes can be plucked out of classic portrayals of goddesses and witches: revenge, wrath, duplicitousness and jealousy among them. Witches are also often the foil to the good and heroic protagonist. Here Miller refuses the traditional motifs and in doing so, draws Circe to the foreground as a protagonist for a new generation.

 In Circe, a backstory emerges of the young water nymph, ignored and neglected by her father, the Titan god Helios, and the family that surrounds him. She is eventually banished from her father’s house to live out her days on the island of Aiaia for using pharmaka (magic), a power as yet unknown to the ancient gods. Circe uses this power with good intentions—she is in love with a mortal and seeks to turn him into a god so that they can marry. However, the mortal is vain and uninterested in the “homely” and “lesser” goddess Circe and pursues instead the beautiful and vapid nymph Scylla. Circe responds by turning Scylla, quite accidentally, into what she believes is her “true self”: a terrible sea monster (Miller 63). Here is the first powerful message Miller presents that not all is what it can seem on the surface. Circe is not a manipulative and conniving witch. She is unaware at this point that she even possesses a special power, or even that witches exist. She suffers more from naiveté than malice. This does nothing to placate the male gods of her family, however, that find her so threatening that she is banished forever to her island, despite knowledge of other male siblings that also possess the power, and another female sibling that is deemed not dangerous because she is married to a king that will “keep her in line.”

So too in the real world, while many cultures revere the witch, patterns of abuse, threats and even death have historically followed women participating in acts deemed “witchcraft” by male leaders. Certainly, the Salem witch trials are famous examples of this, but even today, in places like modern Nigeria, witchcraft can be blamed for misfortune and women placed on trial (Schons 2011). And in the modern Western world, witchcraft can be view as anything from imbecilic games for women to dangerous occultism. The story of Circe takes its notes from this checkered record of reality.

Once banished, Circe begins to hone her crafts in spells and herbalism. It is significant, to me, that she is able to do this because she is isolated on her island and away from prying eyes or judgement. If Circe was not so protected, would she have been able to become such a powerful witch? Given what we have learned about the views towards witchcraft in ancient Greek mythology, it is doubtful.

While in this seclusion, Circe is visited by a desperate crew of sailors. Out of kindness, she welcomes these men and feeds them. Things escalate, however, and the men attack Circe and one rapes her before she can defend herself with magic. This event, preceding the arrival of Odysseus to her shores, is the first time she turns men into pigs. The scene is a vivid and horrifying example of strength in the face of violence. In order to take back her power, Circe vows that she will continue to help wayward ships, but will always be cautious and keep magic at hand in case she needs it to defend herself. In Miller’s Circe, this self-defense mechanism is behind the story of Odysseus’ pig men, not caprice.

Here again there are modern ties to feminism in witchcraft. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, a meteoric rise in witchcraft occurred as an answer to the perceived sexist actions of the incoming president. Before and after the election, those in Trump’s party used the term “witch” derisively many times. This includes Trump himself brandishing the term “Witch Hunt” on social media whenever he was challenged, and rightwing religious groups calling Democratic congresswomen including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “a coven of witches that casts spells on Trump…” (Doyle 2019). In answer to this attempt to give witches a bad name, feminists took back the term and began organizing with “witchy” themes in mind. When the 2017 Women’s March took place, one writer/organizer was quoted as saying, “We need to go full witch.” This calls back to the 1968 group W.I.T.C.H., a feminist organization that reveled in dressing in pointy hats and protesting under a manifesto of courage and revolution in the face of oppression (Doyle).

While history has sometimes tried to paint female witches as capricious and dangerous, the reinvented tale of Circe takes back power. Through beautiful prose and a story that is at once relatable and classic, women everywhere can feel that her story is their own. They participate in a legacy of strength and wisdom. It is a legacy of the witch, the goddess and ultimately, the feminist.

Works Cited 

Doyle, Sady. Monsters, men and magic: why feminists turned to witchcraft to oppose Trump. The Guardian, 7 Aug. 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/07/monsters-men-magic-trump-awoke-angry-feminist-witches. Accessed 5 December 2021

Homer. Odyssey. Edited by Alexander Pope. Duke Classics. 2012

Miller, Madeline. Circe. 1st ed., Back Bay Books. 2018

Nicolaou, Elena. How this author is rewriting The Odyssey to place a woman front & center. Refinery29, 10 Apr. 2018, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/04/195530/madeline-miller-circe-author-interview-women-mythology. Accessed 5 December 2021.

Schons, Mary. Witch trials in the 21st Century. National Geographic, 21 Jan. 2011. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/witch-trials-21st-century/ Accessed 5 December 2021