Myth Adaptations: The Persephone Story
Our leading lady goes by many names. Common among these are the Roman Proserpine/ Proserpina and the Greek Persephone. Another is Korē, which simply translates to "maiden." Classical Athenian playwright Euripides even goes as far as to refer to her as arrētos korē, “the unnamed maiden" (Lincoln 230). This moniker seems pretty suitable: even as the protagonist, she is often relegated to being a placeholder, a blank slate to project one's own feelings on, rather than a character in her own right.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. As poet Louise Glück reminds us in her poem, “Persephone the Wanderer":
You are allowed to like
no one, you know. The characters
are not people.
They are aspects of a dilemma or conflict.
Myths (and all stories, really) are essentially metaphors used to understand the world, in the way that humans understand best: in relation to other humans. Persephone's story is less about her and more about her initiation into adulthood, and thus any woman's initiation — a timeless, universal plot that has been told and retold and experienced for countless thousands of years, with each new author and generation putting their own spin on it.
In this essay series, I plan to take a deeper look at what sets these adaptations apart in their attempts to update this and similar timeless themes, specifically in regards to women's perceived roles in society at the time. This is still going to be quite lengthy, and so I'm going to break it up into a couple of chapters, linked to below:
Works Cited
Lincoln, Bruce. "The Rape of Persephone: A Greek Scenario of Women's Initiation." The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 72, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1979), pp. 223-235. Online.