https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i2.004
Reimagining Monstrosity: Bakhtinian Polyphony and Feminist Mythmaking in Natalie Haynes’ Stone Blind (2022)
Serdzhan Ibryam Hasan
Research Master’s in Literary Studies
University of Amsterdam
Abstract: This study examines Natalie Haynes’s Stone Blind (2022) as a feminist revisionist retelling of the Medusa myth, analysing how the novel employs a Bakhtinian polyphonic narrative form to interrogate and destabilise patriarchal constructions of monstrosity. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic novel, alongside feminist revisionist mythmaking as articulated by Adrienne Rich and Alicia Ostriker, the paper argues that Stone Blind resists monologic, patriarchal mythmaking by distributing narrative authority across multiple autonomous voices, including gods, mortals, and inanimate objects. Through close reading, the article demonstrates how Haynes reconfigures Medusa from a monstrous object within hero’s heroic narrative into a self-aware, ideologically independent subject. The novel exposes monstrosity as a culturally and politically constructed category rooted in fear, bodily difference, and patriarchal judgment rather than inherent moral corruption. By foregrounding narrative plurality and ideological tension, Stone Blind not only recuperates Medusa’s silenced voice but also offers a structural critique of the mythic traditions that have historically marginalised female figures. This study concludes that Haynes’s polyphonic strategy advances feminist revisionist mythmaking by transforming monstrosity into a contested site of meaning, agency, and cultural critique.
Keywords: Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind, Medusa, Bakhtinian polyphony, Feminist revisionist mythmaking, Monstrosity
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