There has been a recent trend in the retelling of fairy tales, legends and mythologies in the publishing world. Dark romances and enemies-to-lovers rank high in the genre and since these are specifically adult retellings, many are spicy and others deeply disturbing. The disturbing ones come with a litany of trigger warnings that have left me searching Google for clarification. Thanks Internet. I will write about this phenomenon in the next newsletter as it is worth our attention. I have another goal here: to use a specific myth to add a different lens of women's descent into suffering as a result of sexual trauma.
I am taking a look at the myth of Persephone and Hades: remember them? Queen and God of the Underworld in Greek mythology? Here's why:
It has become popular in the retelling genre
There are perhaps hundreds of interpretations of this myth - some try to find romance in it and others see the hellish trauma for what it is
Greek myths are most famous via the poets Homer and Hesiod with most retellings offered by men throughout history, until the advent of feminism where more women scholars were able to lend their voices
In some recent novels the retelling is rife with verbal and emotional abuse, sexual assault, and Stockholm Syndrome which frighteningly equates to eventual "love" between the main characters. These appear to be written by women - although many authors use pseudonyms so I cannot be sure.
Some facts:
Zeus is Persephone's father by the Goddess Demeter
Zeus and Hades are brothers
Demeter is their sister
Hades is Persephone's uncle
Hades wanted Persephone for his wife because he was lonely and had zero access to Tinder. Of ALL the women who roamed the lands - he set his eye on his niece. Of course, his brother Zeus was thrilled to collude with him to enact this. Zeus is ancient mythology's greatest philanderer and sexual offender. It has been indicated that he too was with Persephone and I suspect he saw himself reflected in his brother and was complicit.
Since you fine reader and I are neither gods nor royalty - we can take issue with this, yes?
The common language for this myth is the "Abduction of Persephone" or some similar title. If you are to look at the artworks of Heintz Joseph the Elder (above), Peter Paul Rubens, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and others, you can see the wild confusion of those around, the fear on Persephone's face and her body language of pulling away - there is plain chaos. With the romanticization of the myth in the past 10 years - newer fan art show them as happy lovers.
Let us be clear - you cannot romanticize the abduction of Persephone. This really is what we call Bride Kidnapping (a read worth the sign-in) - still practiced in Kyrgyzstan, parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, Mexico and other places. It is illegal in most of the world. Rape is an element of this practice - and it damages the young girls who are forced into such a "marriage" and leaves entire families in painful upheaval. These young women are human, they are not myths - or have they become such?
Women who have experienced sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse can be likened to Persephone. Simply going about her day with her mother - she was set upon by a perpetrator who had premeditated this, taken down to the depths of the underworld screaming - filled with terror, unprotected, not-knowing, alone, crying day and night - and eventually hungry. To eat of the food of the underworld binds you to the realm - which is why Persephone refused food though it appears it was offered to her. But again, hunger and she was tricked into eating six seeds from the pomegranate by Hades himself.
Her eating of pomegranate seeds can be seen as a euphemism for consuming a different type of seed under duress. An act that would keep her in darkness for part of the year.
Her return topside to reunite with her mother Demeter, for both the awakening of Spring and the lushness of Summer is reminiscent of the woman who is able to live and thrive for a period of time. Happy, open, contented, excited, alive, curious, ambitious - yet, only to a point. Women fall into the winter/darkness/underworld - their depression, fragmentation, vulnerability, yearning, hopelessness, anxieties - experienced simultaneously or usually there is a clear line of demarcation when a woman does descend. Leaving them lost unto themselves and to the world. Like Persephone's descent - the land grows cold - growth halted.
Hades men are those who predate - they make conscious and intentional plans to groom children and women and indeed sometimes may do so with the explicit or implied consent of those who are to protect these very children and women.
The denizens of the underworld are then very much not set in the depths of the Earth - but walk amongst us daily.
We say it! How many times have you heard a man described as "The Devil"? And while he may be well indeed the possessor of many woeful virtues - some actions stand out more than others. The one who stalks; the one who assaults; the one who deliberately starves his family; the one who breaks her spirit; the one who tries to take her life repeatedly.
And the one who succeeds.
How many women are initiated into their places of power through violence or manipulation meted out to them?
As we continue with the myth, Persephone does eventually become Queen of the Underworld and she became much-loved and worshiped by the ancients. Almost as if this end justified the means. Or we have made the best of it? Some bits have survived to indicate that she could be very compassionate to the dead whom she ruled over and simultaneously vengeful to those who moved against her - symbolic of the light and dark that is harboured within us all. Her ascent and descent are also symbolic of the cycle of life.
How many women do you know - if not yourself - have become matriarchs of their families, leaders in companies, politicians, businesswomen, partners in various firms, etc., - because they were harmed and had to make decisions to survive?
“I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.” ~ Amelia Earhart
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