The multi-media source I have chosen for my case study is the novel Circe by Madeline Miller. I decided on this source because in this novel we learn about who Circe really is, not just what the males in The Odyssey and in the making of The Odyssey make her out to be. Madeline Miller did an amazing job portraying her as the goddess she is, rather than an evil witch. In this novel, we learn about the past struggles Circe went through, including family abuse and childhood trauma. This explains a lot of the bad stuff Circe does. She is a misunderstood, traumatized woman, not the evil witch she is put out to be in The Odyssey. I think this is important for my narrative of leadership because Circe is not just seen as a helpless background character in this novel but rather as a fearless, strong, independent woman and leader.

One of the biggest parts of Circe’s journey that is left out of The Odyssey is her relationship with her father, Helios, the sun god. In Miller’s novel, we get to read about how Circe was neglected and mistreated by her family. She was constantly an afterthought of her parents and pushed around by her siblings. She only has one member of her family who she truly loves, and that is her brother Aeëtes. After Circe’s siblings are all sent off or married, she becomes very lonely and soon falls in love with a man named Glaucos. Glaucos abandons her to marry a cruel figure, Scylla. This causes Circe to get very angry, and she does some unimaginable things that end up getting her exiled from her home and sent to the abandoned island of Aeaea, where she is to remain forever. Circe then deals with a horrible trauma by sailors, which leads us to when she meets Odysseus and his crew as they end up on her island, Aeaea. She tricks Odysseus’ crew into having a feast with her, where she turns them into swine. In the story of The Odyssey, Circe is seen as evil for turning Odysseus’ crew into swine, but in reality, she is just scared of them.

This narrative changed how I looked at Circe in The Odyssey. I saw her as a mean witch who just wanted to use the men for her benefit when she really just didn’t want to go through more trauma, so she was just trying to keep herself safe. Miller’s retelling gives us so much context for why Circe is the way she is, and that is so important. A lot of times, when a story is told by a man, we don’t get much background on the evil female characters. It’s refreshing to see the “witch” actually be put out as the goddess she is. I believe Circe’s background is significant to the story of The Odyssey; without it, there is a lack of context and reasoning. We are reducing this beautiful, misunderstood, traumatized goddess to an immoral witch.