A princess, a love rat and a monster
In the Greek mythology Theseus, Prince of Athens, doesn’t get lost in the labyrinth as Princess of Crete, Ariadne has given him a ball of thread so, when he has killed the horrible monster Minotaur in the labyrinth, he can find his way out where his new-found love Ariadne is waiting for him.
In a new book, “Ariadne”, Jennifer Saint doesn’t focus on the love story but on Ariadne – the woman who made it happen – when Theseus has dumped her on the island of Naxos and went on marrying Ariadne’s sister – Phaedra.
In this more feministic approach to the story, Saint describes Adriane’s perspective and tries to figure out what became of her when she was abandoned by the love rat Theseus who tried to find happiness married to Phaedra.
“I knew that in Ariadne and Phaedra’s stories, both women were punished for the actions of men. But while I was researching more deeply, I found so many stories in myth that share this theme. I found far more stories than I could include in the novel in the end, but the ones I chose to weave a backdrop of the misogyny and brutality of ancient myth were ones that I felt really reflected and enhanced the main stories of my protagonists”, Saint said in an interview.
She has announced she is writing on a new book, also this one based of Greek mythology. It tells the story of the women whose lives are shattered in one way or another by Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae who was killed by his wife Clytemnestra’s lover when he returned from the war and Troy.
Saint grew up reading Greek mythology and has said she was always drawn to the untold stories hidden within the myths. After thirteen years as a high school English teacher, she wrote Ariadne which tells the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur from the perspective of Ariadne. The book is her debut novel. Saint is now a full-time author, living in Yorshire, England, with her husband and two children.
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