At the same time, the poem reminds us that everything we do is influenced by what happened in our past whereas Persephone abducted shows the way in which she was taken and her mother’s thought and felt about it. The themes and literary devices had a big effect on the poems themselves which assisted in comparing the two poems. The mother’s thoughts and feelings were seen throughout both poems. We also looked at the significance of the narcissus flower. The narcissus flower is a beautiful and unique flower. It represents beauty and vanity.
Persephone spotted this unique flower among all the other flowers (“one narcissus among the ordinary beautiful flowers, one unlike all the others”), is intrigued by it and decides she has to have this flower so she strayed from the herd Just so she can have this lower and pulls and pulls to get the flower (“she pulled, stooped to pull harder”). It can almost be assumed that the narcissus flower was put there purposely to trap Persephone to stray from her herd so that Hades can capture her because the narcissus flower advanced the plot of the story thereby making the story how it is.
It started the whole cause of the story. If she hadn’t strayed from the herd nothing bad would have happened to her. The themes observed for Persephone, Falling are isolation, mother’s love and male dominance. The themes for Persephone Abducted re male dominance, disregard for female input and feelings and Diameter’s power over agriculture. For Persephone, Falling isolation can we seen by not Just Persephone “falling” but what leads to her fall is the fact that she has become isolated from her community.
She wanted to be different from everyone else, have the prettiest, most unique flower all to herself, and as a result, she was too far away to be saved or even heard by anyone (“No one heard her. No one! She had strayed from the herd”). “One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful flowers, one unlike all the others! Emphasize one-ones, singleness because the first line is enjambment, the reader is able to believe this refers to Persephone and the flower. The theme Mother’s love can be seen throughout the poem when reading the poem you can feel the anger and frustration from the mother’s point of view.
Demeter shows her love by giving instructions to the audience from line 9 to line 12 “Remember: go straight to school. This is important, stop fooling around! Don’t answer to strangers. Stick with your playmates. Keep your eyes down. The mother gives instructions speaking from a other’s pointing of view telling children the world is a scary place and bad things can happen in the blink of an eye, the little thing can turn into a big thing and then everything can go wrong. She wants her daughter to be safe in a world that’s very dangerous for young, innocent girls.
Male dominance was seen in Persephone falling from lines 4 to 7 “when, sprung out of the earth on his glittering terrible carriage, he due” it can be interpreted as without even consenting to Persephone Hades claimed her already. He did not ask her permission, he took his chance to take Persephone ND raped her, claiming what he referred to as “his”. ‘It is finished. No one heard her signifies that he took her virginity without consent therefore she was raped and she was screaming but because she had strayed no one not even her mother can hear her cries and so it was done and finished with.
For Persephone Abducted the theme male dominance unlike Persephone, Falling was seen in lines 9 to 12 “That’s for the birds, vulture and hawk, the large ones who praise the miracle of flight because they use it so diligently’ which is more of a sarcastic tone but shows abuse of power by doth Zeus and Hades . The Millimeter” and “hawk” is referred to as Hades and Zeus. These lines can also display the theme of disregard for female input and feelings where they abuse their power of God’s and made a decision without even taking Diameter’s feelings and input into consideration therefore also showing male dominance.
The theme for power over agriculture was seen in the last two lines of the poem “she left us singing in the field, oblivious to all but the ache of our own bent backs. ” These lines meant that because of the way Demeter was feeling about the joss of her daughter she totally disregarded the agriculture and because she was the god of agriculture this was a problem for the humans because now because of the ache of Demeter not caring about her Job anymore, humans had to work extra hard and the loss of her daughter contributes to how the seasons were created.
The literary devices used in Persephone, Falling are repetition of “no one” which was used to emphasize that nobody not even her heard her daughter’s cry, tone of desperation. And also repetition of “pull” which shows how badly Persephone wanted his flower that she didn’t give up after the first pull for she Just had to have the flower so she kept pulling and pulling. “Glittering terrible” is an oxymoron which signifies how beautiful Hades is on the outside but he’s evil on the inside.
The “pit” and “ground” symbolize death because the last two lines “this is how easily the pit opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground” shows how easily we can be taken Off good path. “Sprung out” can be seen as Hades waiting for Persephone as if he was lusting over her from before and since Persephone strayed he knew this was his hence. The tone of stanza 1 was calm but the tone of stanza 2 was stern and fear.
In Persephone Abducted the literary devices are “wild eye thrown back” which is a metaphor in which wild eye signifies fear and anxiety, she did not leave willingly, she turned to look for someone to help her. “Philosophy’ is a biblical term it means Demeter is saying she can’t find solace from anyone. The repetition of “no” and “she left” are used respectively for emphasis and signals rebellion and Diameter’s despair and disbelief. “Withered her features to a hags” is symbolism for change from innocence to experience. No names” is alliteration referred to how Demeter had nobody to turn too and how she felt betrayed. The irony in the poem is that Demeter can feed everyone through her control of the agriculture but she can’t feed her own pain. The tone of the poem was reflective and the mood was frustration, anger and sympathy in the audience. To conclude, it is seen that Persephone Abducted is a continuation of Persephone, Falling which went more into depth.
