The Rape of Medusa - Beth J. Seelig, MD

her advice. Perseus and the subsequent knights wearing the image of Medusa on
their shields have not suffered the girl's more intense conflict over separation from
and competition with the powerful maternal image. Perseus has no need to
challenge Athena. He can accept her guidance and protection as gifts from the
good mother. However, Arachne claims her ability to weave as her own, refusing
to accept subordination to the goddess-mother. This is the quandary the little girl
finds herself in as she struggles to separate from, while identifying with, her
mother. To accept maternal authority and superiority during this process can
threaten the development of a coherent identity that is independent of Mother.
Athena is like many excessively narcissistic mothers who cannot accept their
daughters’ independence. She employs a potion made by the witch Hecate to
vengefully turn Arachne into a spider when the girl insists on continuing to
compete with her in the art of weaving. As in the Medusa myth, the ‘bad mother’
aspect of Athena is split off and projected on to another female figure, the witch.
Athena only uses the destructive potion (bad poisonous milk from the witchmother).
The ability to make it belongs to a completely separate hated and feared
image of the mother. This allows the image of Athena to remain benign, despite
her malignant competitive action.
Medusa has been widely regarded as representing the negative aspects of the
mother. Miller (1958) suggested that the hideous face of Medusa can represent
projection on to the mother of the daughter's ugly, evil and hostile impulses, an
expression of competitive wishes. More recently, Herman stated,
Must every Kore not stand in relentless opposition to this entangling
aspect of the mother who would wind her coils about her and never let
her go? And indeed, it was Athene who, when the Medusa defiles her
temple with her lecherous seductions, changed the hair of the offender
into coiling snakes and serpents, as a just punishment for her vile habits
of the swamp (1999, p. 55).
She goes on to tell us that when Demeter was looking for her abducted
daughter in the guise of an old woman, she wore the mantle of Medusa and was
described as ‘the Black One’,
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Demeter Erynis. In this reading of the myth, the equation of Medusa with the
bad mother is very clear. In contrast, duBois states, ‘The myth of Medusa, is a
myth of fear of women, fear of their archaism, their self-sufficiency, their buried
power’ (1988, p. 92).
The worship of Athena goes hand in hand with a fear and devaluation of the
sexual and powerful woman represented by Medusa. Persephone is saved from the
devaluation because she is regarded as being the victim of male lust. Medusa is not