Demeter and Persephone Summary

Demeter and Persephone summary

Demeter was the goddess of harvest and Persephone was the goddess of springtime. One day, while they were picking flowers, Hades, the lord of the dead, came out of the ground and kidnapped Persephone. Demeter looked everywhere for her. She soon learned that Hades fell in love with Persephone and asked Zeus to help him kidnap her so she could become his bride. Demeter was devastated and started to mourn for weeks. The crops started to wilt and humans couldn't grow crops anymore. Zeus decided to do something about it. He told Hermes to bring back Persephone and to make sure she didn't eat any food from the Underworld.

Hermes went and fetched Persephone. Before she left, Hades convinced her to eat 6 pomegranate seeds. Hermes made a compromise and said Persephone had to stay in the Underworld as Hades wife for 6 months, one month for every pomegranate seed. That's why there are seasons. In the fall and winter, Persephone goes down into the Underworld and Demeter mourns. In the summer and spring, she comes back and Demeter rejoices.

Answers to Book Questions

1. Even though Zeus was a bad he was still imperfect. He had to make a peaceful treaty of some type of compromise for his brother living in the dead world. Zeus did not do the right thing without proper communication but I feel that he made that decision for diplomatic motives.

2. Demeter is anthropomorphic because she gets sad and frustrated that her daughter is taken away.

3. Demeter role is to give harvest so that humans will have food. Hades is given the worse role to take care of the underworld. Persephone was a sort of tradeoff compensation for Hades to take care of the Underworld by himself.

Reflection

I would never trade off my daughter for a settlement of any sort. But the reality of history shows that kings gave their daughters away as a diplomatic offering to bring peace and prosperity for their nation. Since society has changed, we can just give money...