Ariadne realizes that there is a darker side to the stories of gods and men. Discuss some examples from the novel that bear this out. Is there still a tendency in our culture to valorize men while ignoring women's pain?

As she grows up, Ariadne realizes that there is a darker side to the stories of gods and men she so often heard. Discuss some examples from the novel that bear this out. Do you think there is still a tendency in our culture to valorize men while ignoring women's pain?

The Prologue sets the tone of the "darker side" when it recounts how on his way to inflict wrath up the Athenians, Minos destroyed the kingdom of Megara, just to show that he could. He used his relationship with the King Nisus of Megara's daughter, who was in love with him, to gain information on the Nisus' weaknesses; then attacked and killed him. He then executed the daughter for betraying her father and kingdom.
When the Minotaur was locked in the labyrinth, Minos bartered with the Athenians to send 14 children over to feed to the Minotaur in exchange for not attacking them.
While progress has been made in our society, and women's rights and place has improved over the years, there is still a number of countries who praise and honor the males while the females are denigrated, abused, and even mutilated. At a higher level, in the working environment, women are still generally paid less than men, for the same work, and perhaps even better quality.

Zeus, Zeus and more Zeus. King of the Olympians does whatever he wants with no regard for the consequences or the pain he causes to others. Humans are just playthings, men or women.

In the novel, a refrain is Ariadne’s bitterness at seeing so many women, like her mother, or Dionysius’s mother, being punished by the gods (including goddesses!) for something done by a man or male God.

Our culture today does still ignore women’s pain and often their achievements, while “idolizing” powerful men. An example would be the many women coming forward with the “Me Too” movement, and how they were ignored or criticized for speaking up about harassment or rape... going back to Dr. Anita Hill. The legal establishment has made it an ordeal for a rape victim to see justice done, or for a woman to seek protection from an abusive partner with a gun.

Women’s pain has historically been ignored by the medical establishment as well. It took decades for studies to be done proving that heart attacks in women do not manifest the same symptoms as in men, and that women respond differently to many drugs. Often they just are not taken seriously. (My mother died of kidney failure after her doctor dismissed her symptoms for months as “a bug.”)

I think the darker side is mainly that the women get punished for the actions of gods and men. Pasiphae, Semele, and Medusa come most immediately to mind. Another dark side in this novel is the death of the children of Argos. Perseus resisted Dionysus and Dionysus couldn’t stand that. But Dionysus called forth the women and was not able to wield the same sort of power over human infants as he was over baby goats.

Dionysus is valorized for bringing the Maenads to Naxos and providing them with a new life away from their abusers, but little is mentioned of the strength and courage it took for the Maenads to flee their former life. Once they are on Naxos, Dionysus exploits them to increase his power and increasing sense of omnipotence. When he uses them to kill mortal infants and bring them back to life and fails, he shows no remorse. The Maenads are left bereft, yet he goes back to his old shenanigans.

Both Ariadne and her mother suffer severely at the hands of the gods, both men and women. Hera's revenge on Theseus's mother is cruelty personified.
Women's struggle for recognition is a long, bumpy road, but advances have been made. We finally have a female vice president; women have been honored (sometimes with great delay!) in the fields of science, athletics, literature, and the arts. But I think too that during the pandemic, women are bearing the difficult tasks of healing, teaching and caring for their homebound children, and having to sacrifice their careers and goals for the duration.

Ariadne realizes early that it is a man's world and even more a God's world and that their actions were done to make then feel better about themselves and have the power and control that they desire and too often being cruel was just something to do for them.

Adiadne learns that there a degrees of darkness and thus needs to help avoid the cruelty and darkness of the most vicious of men and Gods.