Summary

In the first three chapters of Circe, Miller provides her readers with the necessary contextual information required to comprehend the forthcoming narrative; this contextual information includes the origin of Circe's name, her relationship with her parents, her relationship with the Gods, and her status as an outsider within her own family. Told from the first person, past tense, all of these chapters are recounted by Circe and are divided into three portions of her youth: Chapter One concerns birth; Chapter Two concerns events of childhood; and Chapter Three concerns growing up.

Chapter One begins by telling of Circe's birth. The opening line reads: "When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins" (3). The word nymph "means not just goddess, but...