ABSTRACT
When Apollo in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse welcomes Thalia back from her time as a tree, he alludes to the classical tradition of transforming humans between various states-of-being. The transformation enables Daphne to leave a body split by opposing forces of beauty and chastity and to acquire the physical shape that conforms to her conception of herself as a virgin free from sexuality; she is converted into a nonhuman form, into tree life incapable of passion. Andersen's representation of the delights and sights of Paris by night reverberates with the sexual threat implicit to the maiden who seeks out such earthly pleasures. The location for this tale is one that cannot fail to call to mind sexual connotations, and her experiences of Parisian streets, underworld catacombs and garden dance parties resonate with the dangers to which a human girl might fall.
