The mythical encounter of the two heroines: Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia and Madeline Miller's Circe

Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia and Madeline Miller's Circe are two of the most notable contemporary novels that masterfully retell the classical epics from the feminine perspective. Providing us with new insights and possibilities that women's fiction possesses, they fill in the gaps that masculine language-dominated ancient texts have. Moreover, they give voices to the silenced women characters in the ancient texts to rewrite their own stories. At the center of this study, we follow two different women protagonists called Lavinia and Circe on their journey to become heroines. Sharing similar experiences on their journeys, they represent the 'everywoman' figure. Analyzed in Jungian archetypes of the collective unconscious and mythic structure, these novel characters undergo both physical and psychological changes which lead them into self-integrity.