Animus Classics Journal: Vol. 1, Issue 1

78
Written By SHANNON BOLAND
University of California, Los Angeles
ANIMUS VOL. 1
Andromeda Vision:
Reading Identity Through
Mythical Heroines
The mythical heroine Andromeda reflects a dissonance between the complexity
of her identity and her homogeneity in classically influenced art. Insight
into her portrayal as white skinned can be found by tracing back to early depictions
of the mythical princess. Andromeda’s close relationship to the fictional character
Chariclea from Heliodorus’ Aethiopica​shapes how she is perceived in reception.
Repeated visual representations of Andromeda cemented her ethnic appearance
from antiquity, to the Renaissance, and throughout modernity. More recent examinations
of Andromeda have revisited her dynamic with shifting identity as a
way to better understand the constantly evolving and highly subjective construct
of ethnic difference. While early depictions of Andromeda in antiquity visibly
characterized her as a foreigner, over time, her appearance became more and more
assimilated with the domestic conventions of the culture representing her. Inspecting
artistic portrayals of Andromeda and Chariclea exposes how the power of the
image is responsible for conveying and perpetuating ideas of racial difference. A
diachronic examination of the heroine Andromeda reveals the overarching shifts
in interpretations concerning identity constructs.
By studying descriptions of Andromeda within early literary works, it is
possible to understand the relationship between myth and art. In the most widely
pervasive version of her myth, Andromeda is the royal daughter of the mythical
Ethiopian King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. 1 In the context of antiquity, Ethiopia
can be understood not as a specific geographical location or a marker of the
twenty-first century country of Ethiopia, but as a nebulous, quasi-mythological
region of Africa that purportedly existed south of Greece but north of the equator. 2
Andromeda’s mother Cassiopeia angers the sea god Poseidon by claiming to be
more beautiful than the Nereids. In this archetypal myth of the gods punishing
mortals for their arrogance, Poseidon punishes Cassiopeia by setting a sea monster
upon their kingdom of Ethiopia. Rivalling versions claim Andromeda was from