Callyn Langseth asked Madeline Miller:

Even though in most tellings Circe is depicted as an evil sorceress, you chose to show her humanity and make her likable, why?

Madeline Miller Great question! And you're absolutely right, Circe has been portrayed as a two-dimensional villain in most post-Homeric works. In the Odyssey itself, however, she's actually a much more balanced and complex character. Yes, she's frightening, and yes, she turns men to pigs, but after she and Odysseus become lovers she offers to help him and his men, giving them shelter and helping them heal from their griefs for an entire year. Her house is the only place in the Odyssey that Odysseus doesn't agitate to leave--his men have to come and remind him that it's time to go.

Then, when he tells her he's leaving, Circe doesn't try to keep him, nor even complain about his going. She instead offers him vital help and advice on the difficult road ahead. She ends up, in fact, being one of the most helpful people he encounters! So I think it's very interesting that she's been made into such a villain. It has much more to say about our fear of powerful women than it does about Homer's poetry. Even the detail of Circe's connection to humanity comes from Homer--he calls her "the dread goddess who speaks like a human." I wanted to return to that complexity, and expand it further.

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