Medusa and Matisse: Myth and Art in A.S. Byatt’s “Medusa’s Ankles”

Abstract

In “Medusa’s Ankles”, English novelist and writer A.S. Byatt syncretizes a marginal female mythical figure, Medusa from Greek mythology, with a modern work of art by the French artist Henri Matisse, Pink Nude (1935). In the story, the protagonist Susannah’s visit to a hairdresser upon seeing an image of that painting culminates in an act of smashing the salon mirror. Such Medusean rage becomes symbolic as it represents a disengagement from dominant ideologies and stereotypical notions concerning a woman’s body, gender and sexuality. Extremely conscious of her aging body, classics professor Susannah interiorizes the cultural demand that women be young and beautiful; hence the fragments of the mirror reflecting distorted images point to the whole concept of ill or misrepresented women in society. Employing myth and art as key intertextual elements, Byatt presents confounding models to interpret Susannah’s struggle for identity offering innovative perspectives on body/mind dilemma and mirror/gaze argument. While the mythopoeia of Medusa, generally associated with fear and rage, could also connote creative energy and empowerment, the unusual and unattractive depiction of a female body represented by Matisse’s Pink Nude could offer a novel way of exploring the representation of women against sexually charged images in a society defined by certain assumptions.

Keywords

• Medusa
• Matisse
• myth
• art
• Byatt

References

1. Alban, G. (2017). The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’ s Fiction: Petrifying, Maternal and Redemptive. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. google scholar
2. Al-Hadi, H. (2010). Sleeping Beauties or Laughing Medusas: Myth and Fairy Tale in The Work of Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt and Marina Warner. (Doctoral Dissertation, Newcastle University, Newcastle). Retrieved from https:// theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/bitstream/10443/1258/1/Al-Hadi%2011.pdf google scholar
3. Bowers, S. R. (1990). Medusa and the Female Gaze. NWSA Journal, 2(2), 217-35, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/4316018. google scholar
4. Byatt, A.S. (1995). Medusa’s Ankles. The Matisse Stories. New York: Vintage Books. google scholar
5. Byatt, A.S. (2000). True Stories and the Facts in Fiction. On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays. London: Harvard University Press. google scholar
6. Byatt, A.S. (2000). Old Tales, New Forms. On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays. London: Harvard University Press. google scholar
7. Byatt, A.S. (1991). Passions of the Mind. London: Chatto & Windus. google scholar
8. Byatt, A.S. (2002). Portraits in Fiction. New York: Vintage Editions. google scholar

9. Campbell, J. (2004). A. S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. google scholar
10. Cixous, H. & Cohen, K., & Cohen, P. (1976). The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs, 1(4), 875-893. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3173239 google scholar
11. Elderfield, J. (1984). The Drawings of Henri Matisse. New York: Thames and Hudson, google scholar
12. Fishwick, S. (2004). Encounters with Matisse: Space, Art, and Intertextuality in A. S. Byatt’s “The Matisse Stories” and Marie Redonnet’s “Villa Rosa.” The Modern Language Review, 99(1), 52-64. https://doi. org/10.2307/3738865 google scholar
13. Flam, J. D. (1978). Matisse on Art. New York: E. P. Dutton. google scholar
14. Franken, C. (2001). A.S. Byatt: Art, Authorship, Creativity. New York: Palgrave. google scholar
15. Gardam, S. (2013). Sound Apples, Fair Flesh, and Sunlight. A. S. Byatt’s Feminist Critique of Matisse’s depictions of Women. In Nancy Pedri and Laurence Petit (Eds.), Picturing the language of Images (119-133). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. google scholar
16. Harries, E. W. (2008). Ancient Forms: Myth, Fairy Tale, and Narrative in A.S. Byatt’s Fiction. In Stephen Benson (Ed.), Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale (74-98). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. google scholar
17. Heffernan, J. (1993). Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. google scholar
18. Lacan, J. (2006). Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. (Bruce Fink, Trans.) New York: W. W. Norton and Company. google scholar
19. Matisse, H. (1935). Pink Nude. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA. https://collection.artbma.org/ objects/55090/large-reclining-nude google scholar
20. Olivetti, K. (2016). Medusa—Monster or Muse? Jung Journal, 10(2), 37-47, DOI: 10.1080/19342039.2016.1158068 Peterson, A. T., & Dunworth, D. J. (2004). Mythology in Our Midst: A Guide to Cultural References. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing. google scholar
21. Pokhrel, A. K. (2015). Re-(en)visioning “the vanishing of the past”: Myth, Art, and Women in A. S. Byatt’s “Medusa’s Ankles” and “Art Work”, Women’s Studies, 44(3), 392-424, DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2015.1009763. google scholar
22. Silverman, D. K. (2016). Medusa: Sexuality, Power, Mastery, and Some Psychoanalytic Observations. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 17(2), 114-125, DOI: 10.1080/15240657.2016.1172926. google scholar
23. Staley, G. (2008). Beyond glorious ocean: Feminism, myth, and America. In V. Zajko & M. Leonard (Eds.), Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myths and Feminist Thought (209-232). Oxford: Oxford University Press. google scholar
24. Tiffin, J. (2006). Ice, Glass, Snow: Fairy Tale as Art and Metafiction in the Writing of A. S.Byatt. Marvels & Tales, 20(1), 47-66. google scholar
25. Uçar, A. S. (2020). Color, Chaos and Matisse: The Cleaning Lady’s ‘Work of Art’ in A. S. Byatt’s “Art Work”. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 37(1), 186-194. google scholar