ABSTRACT
A complete examination of the construction of feminine experience in the Greek novel appears to demand a complementary study of the various manifestations of the masculine encountered in the narratives. To concentrate purely on the feminine runs the risk of repeating the mistakes of early feminist criticism and seeking to understand conceptions of what ‘woman’ might mean in isolation, when uncovering the operation of gender as a coherent relational sign system is actually more helpful. While Chapter 6 will take as its focus the other roles assigned to men in the novels, in this chapter I will be concentrating on the male protagonists and attempting to articulate what heroism means in the genre.
