The structure of the poem I wrote (where it can be read in any direction/order), is meant to show how these stories are continuously retold, repeated, and resemble one another. Like Mockrin’s A story told this many times becomes the forest title suggests. Each myth begins to blend into the other as participants reorder the poem’s lines, yet each new poem becomes a similar cohesive tale. This structure reveals the very nature of how these ancient myths become retold and stream into the modern day – the new poems participants create don’t necessarily read as ‘ancient’ anymore (except for lines that include names such as Apollo), and can speak to the experience of women in the modern day. Revealing the very issue at hand. 

 

These three myths depicting the misfortune of the leading female reveals the common stream of the misfortune of women in myth and story more generally, and how society seems to rejoice in the suffering of women – Jesse Mockrin’s work aims to unravel and dissect this notion, and my work here aim to amplify and support her message. 

 

Then, I made my story book illustrations to hold my retellings of the original myths, and to show which poems/lines belong to which myth. I’ve studied a lot of Victorian fairytales and “original/folk” fairytales, and many seem to project the same message of rejoicing in women’s suffering. Think about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and the tropes of the women that they instill in young minds. Both stories romanticize the passive female role, and rejoice in the suffering of the older ‘evil’ female figure (the Stepmother and Evil Queen). I thought this format was fitting to show how the misfortune of women/ misfortune women figure threads through society and persists into the modern.