Notes on Penthesilea: The marks of a past of female heroism

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to construct an image map that will allow us to understand archetypes characteristics that accompany heroic representations of women in cinema. We will begin with the myth of Penthesilea, an Amazon queen whose tragic loss of feminine power will then guide us in the search for new archetypal deflections. We believe the archetype of Penthesilea signifies new leak points in representation of power as connected to the feminine. To prove that will be one of the main goals of this paper. We insist on highlighting that the images associated with the description of this character are allied to a structure linked with a kind of force and power commonly related to the male. Penthesilea bears the mark of an essentially solar/diurnal heroism, in which love will configure as an additional item that makes the characters confront each other violently. The result of this analysis will be a visual trajectory from a moment in the past that connects to contemporary representations of feminine heroism.

Keywords

• genre
• penthesilea
• female power
• hero’s body
• cinema
• mythology
• imaginary
• ascensional heroism
• femininity
• contemporary cinema