Zack Millevoi, Period 2, 5/4/23

Literacy & Learning

Going into this class, I had a surface level understanding of Greek mythology and many of the stories associated with them. As a kid, I used to read many Percy Jackson books, introducing me to a surface level understanding of the mythology. However, through the discussions in this class, I have seen these stories I was accustomed too in terms of a critical lens, and how the mythology in the stories connects to the people who passed those stories down and how they used mythology to explain natural phenomenon, to warm others of morals that should and shouldn’t be followed, and how to live a fulfilling life.

One such example of this is in the story of Demeter and her losing her child to Hades. In the story, Demeter has her daughter taken away by hades to the underworld, causing Demeter to become depressed, and stop the earth from being harvested. After she is able to retrieve her daughter back with the help of Zeus, she is distraught to find that she has eaten a pomegranate seed offered by Zeus, causing her to have to to return Persephone for 4 months at a time during the year, causing what the Greeks attributed to be winter, where no plants could be harvested.

Looking at the story through a psychoanalytic lens, we see that Demeter falls victim to her id, in impulsively taking her anger out on the world in order to cope with the loss of her daughter, we see this as being a negative (as succumbing to the id often is) as humanity begins to starve after no crops are able to be harvested. Not only that, but looking at this from a feminist perspective shows how the Greeks saw women to be subservient to the men in relationships. In class, we talked about how the “pomegranate seed'' is most likely an analogy for semen, and in “giving the seed” to Persephone, the story either makes an analogy, or directly suggests Persephone and Hades had intercourse. Looking at this through a feminist lens shows that women were trapped into marriage and relationships with men through sex, something that still reigns true in some instances today.

Looking at the story of Demeter, it is easy to point the finger not only at hades for stealing Persephone away, but also at Demeter for acting so selfishly afterwards despite being able to see Persephone for most of the year. However, looking at the real world, Demeter still goes through loss that people can relate to on a personal level. In class, we discussed how the story relates to a parent seeing their kid going away for college, and the emotions in their head, after the person they have had to take care of for so long leaves them. They will most likely be able to see their child still, but not after a prolonged period of time where they are alone, and with nobody to take care of, leaving a hole in their life that needs to be filled. Overall, looking though these stories, I have learned that the story of Demeter and Persephone is one about maturation, and how not only it affects the person maturing into a life of marriage and living away, but also the people they leave behind who cared for them so much, having to see them leave their protection after so long at home, something that is such a common human experience, no wonder the Greeks resonated with this tale to educate others on topics of loss, maturity, and grief.