Yanna Mei, Period 7, 10/20/2023

Yanna Mei

Period 7

10/20/2023

Modern Mythology 2024

Literacy & Learning

“Two Great Gods of Earth” was an insightful read. When we went over the story of Demeter and Persephone in class today, I was wondering what kept Demeter from retaliating and getting her daughter back. In “Clash of The Titans”, Thetis was able to take revenge on Perseus indirectly because of her son’s injury. However, Demeter projected her sadness onto the humans instead of attempting to take her back. Initially, I believed what my classmate said and thought that Demeter’s emotions were connected to the seasons changing. Because Persephone returned to Demeter for only part of the year, it made sense that the spring and summer seasons were when she was happy and the harvest would be good. However, as fall and winter come, the harvest is over and Persephone needs to return to the Underworld again. 

I understood a new light to the seasons changing after discussing the implications of the cycle of life and sex in the story. As mentioned, most stories are about sex or about the cycle of life; that we live and die but our legacy lives through our children and then their children. Spring represents rebirth, the summer is the growth and maturity, fall is adulthood, and winter is the period of wisdom and old age. Even in other stories, I am now able to see many different perspectives to the symbols presented. The seasons changing is a common symbol that may be the cycle of life, the feelings of someone else (a god/goddess), or a different passage of time. 

The symbol we focused on today was the cycle of life in the perspective of a parent, specifically a mother. Demeter is portrayed as a mother who just lost her child to someone else. It was discussed in class that the pomegranate seed that Persephone eats symbolizes sex and maturity. This made her mother feel worse because it marks the point where Persephone is no longer a child. The pomegranate seed binds her to the Underworld just as sex/marriage usually binds people to another family. This can be applied to the real world where mothers and fathers grieve over the loss of their children’s innocence. As seniors in high school, we are leaving our families and going off to college (and also the real world). This is similar to the loss of a child in Demeter and Persephone’s story because it is the moment parents realize that they are no longer babies that need to be attended to by their parents. In conclusion, today’s discussion on the story of Demeter and Persephone was eye-opening in that we learned different perspectives of people in our lives as well as the different ways to interpret the symbols of stories.