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The Medusa Gaze offers striking insights into the desires and frustrations of women through the narratives of the impressive contemporary novelists Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson, Jean Rhys and Michèle Roberts. It illuminates women's power and vulnerability as they construct their own egos in opposition to their hostile alter egos or others facing them in their mirrors, and fixes a panoptic gaze on the women stalking its pages, as they learn how to deflect the menacing gaze of others by returning their look defiantly back at them. Some stare back and win assurance; others are stared down, reduced to psychic trauma, madness and even suicide. The book shows how Freud's, Sartre's and Lacan's androcentric views define the Medusa m/other as monstrous, and how the efforts of mothers to nurture may be slighted as inadequate or devouring. It presents Medusa and other goddess figures as inspirational, repelling harm through the 'evil eye' of their powerful gaze. Conversely, it also shows women who are condemned as monstrous Gorgons, trapped in enmity, rivalry and rage. Representing English, American and African American, Canadian and Caribbean writing, the works explored here include realistic, social narrative and magical realist writings, in addition to tales of the past and dystopian narratives. Intro -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter One -- The Ego-Forming Mirror and Gaze -- The Look of the Medusa Head-Reverted with Laughter -- Learning before the Mirror -- The Alienating Mirror Gaze -- The Apotropaic, Petrifying Medusa Gaze -- The Objectifying Medusa Gaze -- Chapter Two -- Looking-Glass Vision and the Double -- Beautified Marionette Dolls -- Objectified Puppets -- Joint Shadows and Mirrored Images -- Overlapping Alter Egos and Doppelgängers -- Symbiotic Sisters -- Destruction or Reciprocity -- Chapter Three -- The Terrible Medusa Mother -- Mother as Monstrous -- Medea: The Mother's Devouring Love -- The Abandoning Mother and Daughterly Longing -- Electra Hate or Reluctant Symbiosis -- Electra Love-Hate and Paternal Longing -- Chapter Four -- Sacrifice in Mothering -- Birth and Mothering: The Thing Itself -- Tough Mother or Grandma -- Matriarchal Survivors -- Demeter/Persephone -- Mother-Daughter Longing -- Maternal Longing at All Cost -- Chapter Five -- Divine Goddess -- Ancient Goddesses Images -- Alternate Gospels' Madonna -- Redemptive Female Divinity -- Medusa's Redemptive Evil Eye -- Madonna Visions -- Mother Goddess Satire -- Chapter Six -- Power Crazed Women -- Monstrous Witch -- Predator and Her Victims -- Terribly Fascinating Interrelationships -- Medusa Fury -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.
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