Keywords

roman literature; comic; roman mythology; gender based violence; classical literature; Ovid's metamorphoses

Abstract

With the historic fascination of Roman and Greek mythology, it is easy to get caught up in the epic the tales of the ancient era provide. A price must be paid for the powerful figures of these stories to rise to such heights, and the ancient world finds women to be their preferred form of currency.

Behind these deceptive chronicles are the trials of women left behind, abandoned, abused and subjected to cruel sexual abuse and the elements reduced to their physical value serving as nothing more than a pawn. One woman, a nymph, is amidst this trial, Ovid brings her story to light in his narratives of the Metamorphoses.

The nymph Callisto, a maiden who serves the hand of Diana. Despite being a fierce warrior, her narrative subjects her to battles she was never meant to win, for Callisto is a story of a brutalized young, sapphic woman under the exploitation of her naivety and outranked. With tensions in our times spiking amidst oppression of feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, her story is as important as ever. Callisto’s story is not unique to her, but stands as a prototypical depiction of an experience women has been put through since the dawn of time.

I find her story compelling and deserving to be translated into visual storytelling. This project adapts Callisto’s story from the Metamorphoses utilizing Brookes More’s English translation of the original text into a comic that illustrates an interpretation of the original work utilizing a feminist lens, and in doing so, divulge the reader into the treatment of women depicted in the ancient and contemporary world.

The loss of bodily autonomy at the hands of government officials, the practices of sexual violence predominant throughout time, and the victims of sexism and its violent nature being lost to history evoked the feeling of necessity to tell this story. As a young artist still exploring my own voice and means of storytelling, I find it pivotal to learn further about the continuity of human culture and depicting it in new forms. Translating ancient text for the contemporary will allow for exposure to the material for those who are unfamiliar, bridging the gap between the past and the present. It is often said that we can learn from our past, and allowing these stories of old to be digestible for the modern day opens many opportunities for people to gain insight, understanding, and hopefully even empathy.

Thesis Completion Year

2025

Thesis Completion Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair

Burrell, Jason

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

School of Visual Arts and Design

Thesis Discipline

Studio Art

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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Illustration Commons

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Rights Statement

In Copyright