In chapter eleven of bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress she quotes a poem by Adrienne Rich, which states “Words impose themselves, take root in our memory against our will.” (hooks, 167) This quote illuminates the ways in which dominant narratives infiltrate and undermine a multitude of identities. Carson’s Autobiography of Red reinvents and reimagines a Greek myth grounded in machismo and transforms the story into a narrative about queer love. Carson’s shift of this story humanizes the ways in which queer narratives are typically understood. Although the protagonist experiences different traumas, the novel does not end in tragedy. Carson creates multifaceted characters that shape one another throughout the story. Geryon is empowered through self-discovery and the recognition that he is not alone. In the last chapter, Geryon states “We are amazing beings…neighbors of fire” (Carson, 146) illustrating the power of his existence and others that occupy spaces similar to him. hook’s discusses the ways in which marginalized peoples take oppressive language and create a type of counter-hegemonic speech thus finding liberation through language. (hooks, 175) In a similar way, Carson makes stories such as Geryon’s visible and forcibly claims space that has not been given to marginalized queer identities in canonical literature.