The beauty of higher education is that young adults are specializing their time and areas of interest to pursue their passions outside of the institutions that consumes so much of our lives currently. Whether these pursuits are in biology, linguistics, physics, or art history, collectively we are the individuals who will bring these perspectives in the world to come. In theory this creates a world that so desperately needs balance. Reality never seems to fully take place what theorists may predict however. Inevitably this balance is threatened and typically not achieved outside of college campuses. While college students are not quite molded into the people we are meant to be yet, adults tend to forget to challenge their mindsets the way students are today. This can lead to a dangerous assumption of understanding the norms that students spend countless hours in their specialized fields daily. From my own experiences, I have been finding myself increasingly more frustrated with the social injustices that were never there before since I was never looking and how to express these problematic issues to those who do not study these issues has been difficult to say the least.
While I was one of the individuals who did not know much about the history of women’s suffrage or the inhumane discrimination that individuals of the gay and gender queer community have and still currently experience, educating myself within these areas has truly made me see the world differently. Despite how cliché it may sound, a different perspective creates an existence in the world that was simply never there. Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red introduces a new light of thinking through the life within a story told countless times before. The myth of Hercules typically focuses on the path the demi-god takes rather than the little red monster Geryon. Carson is able to capture a part of his character that has never been observed before, metaphorically representing the queer and marginalized individual through Geryon’s life. Dina Georgis’ excerpt regarding the novel explicitly explains how Geryon’s autobiography is an inventive take on the myth. She shares “Geryon’s own experience” is narrated to us, not in words or in a digested story of his life but in obscure photographic stills of life fragments in excess what can be known about his body” (Georgis 156). In the face of trauma or those who have been neglected, often two narratives are never the same, but certain trends and patterns develop through those who are willing to share them. Rather what makes Geryon’s autobiography inventive is not what he is saying, but how. His story is told through a lens of a camera. Anne Carson is able to revolutionize this concept through repeating a story that has been told for centuries.