Abstract

In this chapter, I will read Ancient Greek origin myths using the tools of psychoanalytic practice that Freud invented and demonstrate how the mythical edifice is slyly transported into ‘philosophy,’ and so interludes with Plato or Aristotle will show how unconscious fantasy winds its way into ‘truth’ as it is codified in a metaphysical or a scientific system. The chapter explores five feminine figures that appear as foundational to the Olympian cosmos, as their tales exemplify androcentric fantasy at work: Aphrodite, Pandora, Hekate, Metis, and Athena. Close analysis of these narratives demonstrates the ways in which myth makes birth a masculine power and consistently undermines or erases feminine (or queer, or non-binary) agency, while simultaneously making feminine links or lineage impossible. War is the heart of androcentric fantasy, and this is confirmed by the manner in which birth is imagined in these myths, ambiguating birth and war in androcentric imagination.