The Speaker

The speaker is a third-person storyteller who immerses the reader or listener (the “you” pronoun) into the story world. The speaker is therefore fluid depending on the reader’s chosen interpretation; they may be one who has been trapped by Medusa before and is sharing their experience, or one who is conveying a cautionary tale that has been passed down through the ages. They are largely invisible, with attention being placed on the titular character and the point-of-view second-person character.

Medusa

The title character comes from a figure from Greek myth: a monstrous woman with snakes for hair and the power (or curse) to turn all those who looked at her into stone. In the context of the poem, she is portrayed as powerful and stationary, like a stone pillar. Her influence, though in some ways seductive, is ultimately deceptive. The poem suggests that she has a...