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Greek Myth: The Rape Of Persephone

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Recommended: Influence of Greek mythology on Western culture and even the world culture

Death and Rebirth is a common theme throughout Greek mythology within many of the myths. Specifically, these themes can be seen within the Greek myth The Rape of Persephone. At its heart, The Rape of Persephone myth was used to explain to the mortals, the turning of the seasons on earth. There are several variations, however, typically the story begins with Hades, the king of the underworld, confiding in Zeus that he has seen Persephone’s great beauty, and wants permission to take her as his bride in the underworld. Zeus, as king of the gods, agrees to his union; however, he doesn’t tell Persephone or her mother Demeter, who is the goddess of agriculture, of his agreement with Hades. One day when picking flowers in a meadow, Hades abducts …show more content…

The main characters within this story each have a strong connection to the themes of Death and Rebirth. Demeter, as the Goddess of Agriculture has a strong connection to the theme of rebirth as it is her responsibility to ensure healthy harvests for the mortals on earth. In contrast, Hades is the king of the underworld, or the lord of the dead, and this associates his character greatly with the theme of death. Finally, Persephone is tied with the themes of both death and rebirth in a very strong manner, through both her titles as the Goddess of spring and queen of the underworld. Within this myth it is not only the gods and goddesses who are affected physically and emotionally by the themes of death and rebirth, the whole world around them mirrors this cycle of death and rebirth experienced by the characters. When Persephone experiences her symbolic death through her return to the Underworld with Hades, simultaneously, the whole world experiences a collective death due to her disappearance, with the arrival of winter and the death of plants and harvests throughout the land of the living. However, when the goddess experiences a symbolic rebirth with her return to the land of the living, she brings spring to the world, in which plants and animals experience a rebirth after the death of winter. The story of Persephone captures the spirit of the natural process of the world, as the descent and return of the goddess bring about the changing of the seasons. This transition also resembles the birth and death cycle that all living creatures experience on this

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The Greeks had many underground ceremonies for Demeter to ensure a decent harvest. She was the foundation for the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most widespread rituals of Ancient Greece. The Eleusinian Mysteries, was explained in Homer’s book called, “Hymn to Demeter”. The royal family of Eleusis helped Demeter to find her daughter, Persephone. Then, Demeter,

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This means Demeter would always bring the crops back during Spring and Summer, but Persephone went away, she cried which made the crops die in Fall and Winter. This shows that this Greek myth is similar to the Native-American myth because of the seasons being changed. The theme of this myth is that things have to come and go. Gluskabe and Old Man Winter is about a person named Gluskabe who tries to help the human beings stay alive, but Old Man Winter is making winter stay.

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Hades role as being the God of the underworld consisted of controlling the dead, he was able to resurrect the dead and command ghosts. However, his main responsibilities were to prevent escapes, or returns to the earth from the dead. Hades and Persephone Myth Hades fell in love with Persephone; daughter of Demeter, and decided the only way to have her for himself, was to abduct her. When Demeter realised that her daughter was missing, she began to worry, and she went looking for Persephone asking everyone if they had seen her, not knowing that Hades had taken her.

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No one seemed to care about how Demeter felt about the situation until she withheld fertility to the earth resulting in the the mortals becoming unable to give sacrifice to the immortals. This bothered Zeus, so he commanded Hermes to bring Persephone to Demeter. When Demeter was finally reunited with Persephone, she found out that Persephone had eaten food from the underworld which meant that Persephone was only able to spend 8 months on Olympus and 4 months in the underworld. Traditionally women would not have been able to do this, but Demeter was a powerful god and able to use her power to achieve her goal. Even so, Demeter being able to get Persephone back even for only 8 months out of the year was very uncharacteristic of how arranged marriage worked in Greece as women were rarely given power in that situation.

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This made Demeter mad and sad which made the earth go into something called winter which was where nothing grew. While Persephone was in the underworld she heard that you are not suppose to eat anything while you are in the underworld or you will have to stay but she ate three pomegranate seeds. That made it so she would have to come and stay in the underworld for three months

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“Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth. ” Persephone is a Greek Goddess of spring, and the queen of the underworld. She was abducted by her future husband and raped. She was taken to the underworld and was fed 6 pomegranate seeds, even though she was told never to eat food from the underworld.

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