Chapter 37 Summary: Medusa

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 37 opens with Medusa alone in the cave, waiting until both sisters are occupied—Sthenno making bread, Euryale tending sheep—before she loosens the bindings around her eyes. She has timed this carefully; she does not want either sister to see what is beneath the cloth. She knows Sthenno would try to hide her horror behind a forced compliment, and that Euryale would not flinch at all. She wants to spare them both that sight.

She unties the knot, and the snakes in her hair shift aside, hissing softly. As the pressure eases, she discovers she can blink—her eyelids are still intact. She also notices the bindings are dry: Medusa, who once wept freely, no longer produces tears.

When she opens her eyes, she sees only blackness. The cave she knows intimately has become unfamiliar. She cannot tell how far inside she is sitting, and touching the rock does not help. She hears something scuttle past and turns too slowly to see it, though she can tell from the sound that it is moving deeper into the cave. Reasoning from that, she moves the other way, toward the entrance.

The darkness does not lift at once. She begins to doubt herself, but the air grows warmer and the salt smell stronger, and she trusts those senses. She blinks again and notices the blackness is faintly tinged with red. She waits, letting her eyes adjust; the more she tries to see, the less she feels the pain.

After a long time, gold appears at the edges of her vision—the light of Helios. The sun god has not abandoned her. The snakes curl and uncurl around her, and for the first time they communicate a desire: they want to be in the sun, to feel warm sand on their scales. Medusa understands them and shares the longing.

Gradually her sight improves. She sees a brighter core and a darker circumference, and when she moves her head, the brightness stays fixed—she is looking at the cave entrance. The image develops: gold light, then a darker, cooler light—the sea. Eventually she sees the sun as a bright golden disc and, to her left, an unmoving line that is the horizon.

Then Sthenno calls her name. Medusa opens her mouth to reply, but the snakes erupt into a hissing, writhing mass of fear and anger. They pulse around her skull, frantic. Medusa is not afraid of them, but she knows she must do what they urge. She raises her hands to her temples and understands: they want her to cover her eyes again. She does not reason with them. She takes the cloths and binds them across her eyes, layer after layer, until the snakes slow their squirming.

By the time Sthenno reaches her, Medusa is completely in darkness again. But the sun shines on the snakes, and it shines on her.

Key Events

Medusa waits until both sisters are occupied before removing her eye bindings
She discovers her eyelids are intact and that her bindings are dry—she has stopped weeping
Her sight returns gradually; she navigates by warmth, smell, and sound before vision arrives
She perceives the cave entrance, the sea, and the horizon—Helios's light still reaches her
The snakes express their first desire: sunlight and warm sand
When Sthenno calls, the snakes panic and compel Medusa to rebind her eyes
She is blind again by the time Sthenno arrives, though the sun still falls on her and the snakes

Character Development

Medusa. This chapter is almost entirely interior, following Medusa's private experience of her transformed body. She tests her own limits—removing the bindings in secret, blinking to check her eyelids, moving by feel. Her grief has changed: the tears that once flowed freely have stopped, and she notices without dwelling on it. She also demonstrates a new trust in her other senses, using warmth and smell to find her way when sight fails. The most significant shift is her relationship to the snakes. When they express a desire for sunlight, she understands them and shares the longing. When they panic at Sthenno's voice, she obeys without question. She has begun to think of them as part of herself; her will is increasingly entangled with theirs.

The snakes. For the first time, the snakes are given something like agency. They hiss, shift, express desire, and panic. Their demand that Medusa cover her eyes again is the first clear indication that they understand something about the danger of her gaze that Medusa herself does not. They are not merely decoration or a curse; they are actors with their own instincts and fears.

Sthenno and Euryale. Neither sister appears directly, but their presence shapes Medusa's choices. Her decision to wait until they are gone, and her predictions of how each would react, reveal how carefully she reads them—and how much she wants to protect them from the sight of her ruined face.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Blindness and sensory compensation. Medusa's temporary sightlessness forces her to rely on other senses—the warmth of the air, the smell of salt, the sound of something scuttling past. The chapter suggests that losing one sense sharpens the others, and that Medusa's knowledge of her own body is more fragile than she assumed.

Snake autonomy and control. The snakes' desires and fears drive the chapter's turning point. They want sunlight, and they want Medusa's eyes covered. Medusa's submission to them marks a shift in who controls her body.

Bindings as protection. The cloths over Medusa's eyes are both concealment and safeguard. She removes them to test her sight, but the snakes insist they go back on. The bindings protect others from her gaze, and they protect Medusa from whatever the snakes fear.

Hope and abandonment. Medusa's perception of Helios's light is framed as reassurance—the sun god has not abandoned her. The brief moment of seeing the horizon and the sea is a glimpse of a world she can no longer fully inhabit.

Sisterly concealment. Medusa's decision to hide her condition from her sisters is an act of care, but it also isolates her. She knows exactly how Sthenno and Euryale would react, and she chooses to spare them—and herself—that encounter.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 37 is a quiet, interior chapter that gives Medusa a rare moment of private agency. It establishes the snakes as characters with their own will, which becomes important for understanding the constraints on Medusa's choices later in the novel. It also dramatizes the cost of her transformation: she has lost the easy familiarity of her cave, her tears, and her ability to see the world without consequence. The brief vision of the sea and horizon is a moment of hope immediately withdrawn when the snakes demand she cover her eyes again. The final image—sunlight falling on the snakes and on Medusa, even as she is blind—captures the strange coexistence of beauty and loss that defines her condition.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Medusa wait until her sisters are outside the cave before removing her bindings?

Medusa does not want her sisters to see what is beneath the cloths. She predicts Sthenno would hide her horror behind a forced reassurance, while Euryale would not flinch at all. Medusa knows both reactions well enough to want to avoid them. Her secrecy is protective—she wants to spare her sisters the sight of her ruined face, and herself their responses.

2. What does the snakes' desire for sunlight reveal about their relationship to Medusa?

The snakes' longing for sunlight and warm sand is the first desire they have expressed to Medusa, revealing that they are not merely a passive curse but have their own instincts and needs. Medusa understands them and shares the longing, suggesting a growing bond. Their later panic and demand that she cover her eyes again shows this bond cuts both ways: the snakes can compel her, and she will obey.

3. Why do the snakes panic when Sthenno calls Medusa's name?

The chapter does not explain the snakes' fear directly, but their frantic behavior and insistence that Medusa rebind her eyes suggest they understand something about the danger of her uncovered gaze that she does not yet grasp. The snakes act on instinct, and Medusa trusts that instinct enough to cover her eyes again without argument. The implication is that her gaze, now transformed, is a threat—and the snakes know it before she does.