Children Misbehaving
In Eavan Boland’s “The Pomegranate” the narrator sees the myth of Demeter and Persephone as a metaphor for growing up and moving into the big scary world. The narrator says that she was first the child Persephone and then eventually became the mother Demeter. Here she talks about being on her own for the first time: “As a child in exile in a city of fogs and strange consonants” (8-9). This is similar to Persephone being without her mother when she enters into the deep dark underworld, which at first can seem very similar to a big city with dark alleys and people who look as though they are chasing death. The narrator then becomes Demeter talking of winter coming: “But I was Ceres then and I knew winter was in store for every leaf on every tree on that road.” (19-21). She is now in the place where her child has to go venture out on her own for the first time and she compares her sadness to Demeter who has to part with her child for a third of every year. The narrator compares the emotions of having to let go of a child with the cold dead winter that Demeter causes when grieving.
Rita Dove also writes a poem, “Persephone, Falling” about the myth of Persephone and Demeter, but sees it as a warning like stranger danger. The narrator talking about the capture of Persephone: “It is finished. No one heard her No one! She had strayed from the herd.”(7-8). The quote is similar to a little child wandering off into a street or getting lost in a crowded area. After listing the rules that children should obey the narrator says, “This is how easily the pit opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground” (13-14). This is saying that any child can swooped away and never be seen again just like Persephone who was taken into the hole that lead to the underworld. Hades can be seen as a predator for children just waiting to take them forever and unless children follow the rules of safety they can become Persephone.
Icarus’s myth is one of warning preceeded by failure, and how no matter how much you warn someone they usually will still make the mistake. Children who are told not to touch something quite often will eventually touch it. It seems to bear a connection to youth and being irresponsible. In the myth the father does something while imprisoned that he is not supposed to do which is why they have to make their hasty retreat, so in turn the son is quite similar to the dad. Like father like son.