On the reading list, and under suspicion

Greek myth is popular enough in Korea to be named recommended reading for teenagers. Its stories passed through the Hellenistic and Roman worlds and still give Western literature and art many of their motifs, and new films, novels, and dramas keep drawing on them. Part of the appeal is that they offer a way to see nature and people, and that gods and heroes let readers cross between the real and the unreal.

Then the other side. The myths, critics say, show conquest of nature, violence, unequal roles for men and women, and a patriarchal ideology. Park Hong-kyu, a Yeungnam University professor and author of a book on 'killing the Greek ghosts', compared them to Korean makjang dramas full of affairs, violence, and revenge, and noted that such dramas at least wear an outward morality of rewarding good, which the myths lack. He called the enthusiasm a 'spiritual imperialism'. That account does not go all the way with him. It does say a critical reading is hard to deny, and reminds the reader that Xenophanes and Plato raised similar doubts long ago.

Myth reflects a ruling ideology and a culture's view of the world, often through two figures in a relation of ruler and ruled. Read without thought, a patriarchal view can travel along with the story. And the violence is plain: power struggles, the killing of a father, the killing of a brother, sexual violence.

A flat world, a family of gods, and Hera's bad press

Scholars commonly date the myths to about 1600 to 1100 BCE, the account says. The Greeks then saw the earth as a flat disc with Greece in the middle, and at its center Olympus, the gods' home, and the oracle site of Delphi; the sea split the world east to west, and to the far west lived giants, monsters, and women who worked magic. The myths stress heroic struggle, war, and sexual aggression, reflecting individualism and competition, and their gods are shaped like people, a little larger and stronger and free of sickness and death.

The Olympians are a family. Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Poseidon, and Hades are the children of Cronus and Rhea, and the maleness of Zeus and his brothers underlines patriarchal standing. Zeus has two faces: the awe-inspiring judge of gods and people, and a god of loose desire who changes shape to fool Hera. Hera, queen of heaven and guardian of marriage, takes his affairs as an insult. She sets Heracles twelve labors, blocks the births of Apollo and Dionysus, turns Callisto into a bear and Io into a cow. Hades comes up from below and carries off Demeter's daughter Persephone by unfair means. The turn is short and sharp: the jealous, vengeful Hera is a portrait painted by male power. Read the stories, it says. Just read them with the lights on.

Sources

1. patriarchal elements, violence, and images of women in Greek myth, discussing among others Park Hong-kyu's critique, Xenophanes, and Plato.

Last updated: 14 November 2026