The Sacred and the Mundane: The Archetypal Hestia and Postmodern Domesticity

Abstract

Home is much more than a profane house, but a deeply meaningful and abstract concept. The ancient Greeks, as well as many other cultures, used mythological imagery to symbolize home, specifically the image of a glowing hearth which was also represented and worshipped as the goddess Hestia. The mythological figure of Hestia is underrepresented in scholarship considering she is one of the Olympians and sister to Zeus. This dissertation argues that Hestia was a clearly defined image of great importance in the ancient world and also follows the transition of this singular image to the highly variable images of family and domesticity in contemporary American cultures. Utilizing an assortment of primary source material from ancient Greece and Rome, this dissertation uses an archetypal perspective to argue that Hestia symbolizes the center and the container as well as an inward drawn focus. After a study of the classical, Greco-Roman material, a survey of the current available scholarship on this goddess is presented. Next the archetype is compared to similar figures from other world mythologies such as West African trickster mythology and Judeo-Christian religious mythology. Finally, manifestations the archetype are identified in contemporary Western culture, demonstrating a developing postmodern view of domesticity.