Stone Blind

“Only a sudden, enveloping darkness as Zeus grabbed her in his huge hand. And then a strange sensation of being inside the black cloud that follows the thunderbolt.”

The Medusa-Narrator depicts Zeus’s destruction of Metis, noting his overwhelming power. The quote uses alliteration (“his huge hand” and “strange sensation”) to highlight Metis’ shapeshifting and, with it, the horrifying impossibility of escaping the ruler of the gods.

“Her large brown eyes gave the misleading impression of a sweet-natured creature. A deer, say, or a cow. But she was as sharp-eyed as any predator.”

The Medusa-Narrator describes Zeus and Hera as equally matched in spite. She compares Hera in particular to both prey and predatory animals, contrasting her innocent appearance with her temper. This plays into the novel’s portrayal of several women as both victims and perpetuators of violence.

“The Gorgon girl looked out across the vast ocean and believed she could be seen in return. And she could, but not by her mother.”

Medusa contemplates a mother whom she’s never met—the sea goddess Ceto. This quote foreshadows Poseidon’s predation and Medusa’s cursing by Athene, as her own sight will soon prove fatal.

“And with this, she raised herself in the air and smashed her feet onto the scarred rock. There was a tremor, and the sea itself felt fear.”

When Euryale learns that Poseidon sexually assaulted Medusa, she challenges his domain, the sea, by pushing away the shore of Ethiopia. Medusa’s sisters are introduced as powerful women for their vicious rejection of gods like Poseidon and continue to prove so.

“Gradually, she came to understand that her father’s fear of death—which had always made him hate his brother, since he looked at his twin and saw an aging mirror—was the cause of her unhappiness.”

Despite being imprisoned by her father, King Acrisius, because of the Oracle of Delphi’s prophecy, Princess Danaë extends grace. While naïve, she recognizes that her father sees his family as reflections of his own mortality—which she conveys through a mirror. This quote foreshadows Queen Cassiope praying for a daughter to mirror her own beauty.

“Hephaestus stared at her as though he had carved her himself from gold and marble, but was too afraid to speak to her.”

After being born of her father’s head, the statuesque Athene receives a cold reception at Mount Olympus—bar Zeus and Hephaestus. Hephaestus’ intimidation by Athene foreshadows his later obsession, exacerbated by Poseidon and Zeus’s toxic masculinity.

“She wept fat, flooding tears.”

After Zeus hides the herb that Gaia needs to help her children, the Giants, win the war with the Olympians, she weeps. As the goddess personifying the earth, her tears are imagined as floods, tying her emotions to natural disasters.

“She experienced a rush of exhilaration to have made her first kill in this most mighty of wars. But even as she felt it, she felt something else too. A strange sensation, like ants were crawling all over her skin.”

During the Olympians’ war with the Giants, Athene kills a Giant and develops bloodlust. As expected of the goddess of war, this quote foreshadows her abuse of the role to hurt fellow women—starting with Medusa.

“She felt a searing pain in every part of her skull, as though someone had wrapped her head in a cloth and then twisted and twisted it.”

When Athene curses Medusa, the Gorgon feels her hair transform into snakes. The quote’s framing of her pain as “twisted” mimics the physicality of snakes and reinforces Athene’s own transformation into a woman who harms fellow women.

“When the pain in her skull surged like a storm, she would press the heels of her hands into the sockets to try and calm them.”

After being cursed, Medusa continues to experience pain and visual impairment. Unable to see, she fixates on the feeling of a storm—linking her pain to Poseidon, the god of the sea and her abuser.

“She thought of how she had gathered their broken bodies to herself when the battle was over, how she had held them, how she had wept rivers and lakes.”

Gaia is a protective mother, collecting the corpses of her children, the Giants, and weeping rivers and lakes in their memory. In a novel rife with flawed motherhood, often due to mothers dealing with their own trauma, Gaia proves to be nurturing. This warmth also applies to mortals, as she carefully considers a revenge that won’t harm them in the process.

“And every day, she looked at her reflection and persuaded herself that somehow age had not touched her, the way it does every living creature.”

Queen Cassiope of Ethiopia refuses to acknowledge her aging, as she knows youthful beauty is power in the Greek world. However, this pride proves to be Ethiopia’s downfall, as the Nereids later take offense to it.

“A time when the king of the gods had finally lost his temper with his queen; her conspiracies and criticisms had made him blind with rage.”

Having been sexually assaulted by Hephaestus, Athene considers how to take revenge. She doubts Zeus will take offense on her behalf, as he was the one who approved Hephaestus’ pursuit and has a history of mistreating women.

“He was a force of destruction to her, and nothing more.”

Poseidon considers his sexual assault of Medusa and realizes she made a calculated decision to save a fellow girl. By contrast, he is a mindless “force of destruction,” not unlike the sea.

“They cut down men like so many stalks of wheat. But they do not touch the olives, because we are too beautiful and too perfect.”

Elaia comments on Poseidon and Athene’s contest for control of Athens, noting that Ares voted against Athene’s olive tree because unlike other crops or mortals, olives are sacred and thus protected from war. Using a simile, Elaia compares men to wheat, likening war to harvest.

“Mirror images, they both turned to see that the source of the noise was her mother, her face a mask of pain and fear.”

In reacting to Cassiope’s noise at the same time, Andromeda and her father, Cepheus, are framed as mirror images. This image links the two to the origin of Poseidon’s anger: Cassiope’s claim of being more attractive than the Nereids. However, her face is now a “mask,” reflecting not beauty but pain and fear.

“The touch and the sounds created pictures in front of the bindings on her eyes and, as she tried to recover from the curse, she moved with almost the same confidence she’d had before.”

As Medusa recovers from Athene’s curse, her other senses compensate for her stolen sight. This healing is enabled by her sisters and, later, the protective snakes that make up the trio’s hair.

“He’s just a bag of meat wandering around, irritating people.”

Forced by Zeus to repeatedly help Perseus, Athene dismisses her half-brother as useless, a “bag of meat.” She reduces him to his mortal qualities without realizing how similar she is to her male relatives.

“It thrills me now, thinking of the way the energy fizzed between us, tiny motes in the air that somehow traveled from my eyes to his and took his life.”

Having asked a shepherd for directions to the Titan Atlas’ palace, Perseus becomes irritated and turns him to stone with Medusa’s head. Despite having successfully decapitated Medusa, he continues to perpetuate violence for its own sake. The Medusa-Narrator uncharacteristically feels a “thrill” in using her power, as her will is no longer hers alone.

“The Titan king is now a huge mountain: his limbs becoming shelves of rock, his hair sprouting into vast pine trees.”

Atlas denies Perseus help, so like he did with a shepherd, Perseus petrifies him with Medusa’s head. The Titan is transformed into a mountain, a permanent testament to Perseus’ cruelty and Medusa’s power.

“The sea gods keep their secrets deep; they always have.”

A horrified Medusa-Narrator considers the possibility that her mother, Ceto, knew she had been petrified by her own daughter. Like other sea gods, Ceto kept her share of secrets—including her and Phorcys’ reason for leaving Medusa with her Gorgon sisters in the first place.

“Why didn’t I close my eyes?”

Following Ceto’s petrification, the Medusa-Narrator feels guilt—despite lacking control over Perseus’ use of her head. She questions why she didn’t look away, perhaps fueled by instinct or, like Athene, resentment toward her absent mother.

“Because Hera was set against them and her fury was as uncontrollable as a raging ocean.”

Danaë awaits her dreaded marriage, consoling herself that Zeus will protect her and her son. However, she considers Hera’s history of harassing Zeus’s “women” and falters. The goddess’s fury is compared to an ocean, aligning her more with Poseidon than Zeus in their shared jealousy.