Splitting the Difference-Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India

Author: Wendy DonigerPublisher: Oxford University PressYear: 2002Language: EnglishPages: 376ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195658906 DescriptionIn this book Wendy Doniger recounts and compares several tales from ancient Greek and Indian mythology to demonstrate that Greek and Indian stories of women resemble each other more than the tales of men in the same culture.Hindu and Greek mythologies teem with gendered narratives of doubling and bifurcation: stories of women and men who are doubled, who double themselves, who are seduced by gods doubling as mortals, whose bodies are split or divided. In this book Wendy Doniger recounts and compares several tales from ancient Greek and Indian mythology to demonstrate that Greek and Indian stories of women resemble each other more than the tales of men in the same cultures. In casting Hindu and Greek mythologies as shadows of each other, Doniger shows that culture is sometimes the shadow of gender. Myth, she argues, response to the complexities of th