From Medusa to Mother
Myths of feminine monstrosity in Theodora Sarah Abigail’s Medusae
Abstract
The study examines how Theodora Sarah Abigail’s poetry collection Medusae (2021) reclaims mythological monsters like Medusa, Lilith, and Latrodectus to challenge patriarchal narratives of motherhood. Implementing a close-reading methodology grounded in Creed’s monstrous-feminine theory and Kristeva and Rich’s institutional notion of motherhood, this study analyses seventeen poems that transform maternal “monstrosity” from a pathological notion into a form of resistance. The findings reveal three archetypal reconfigurations: (1) Medusa as the violated “mother” who weaponizes trauma, (2) Lilith as the autonomous mother who refuses subjugation, and (3) Latrodectus as the consuming mother who loves through cannibalism. It then shows that Abigail’s mythological framework reveals the violence inherent in idealized motherhood while asserting that maternal rage, consumption, and refusal are mechanisms, not moral failures. By the end, the study contributes an original analysis of contemporary poetry through feminist monster theory, addressing gaps in maternal literature scholarship and showing how millennial voices rewrite classical mythology to articulate unspeakable maternal ambivalence.
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