Yuri's Digital Portfolio

This story talking about the reason of the season. Zeus decides it's a good idea to give his daughter, Persephone, goddess of spring, as a bride to his brother Hades, god of the underworld. The king of the gods doesn't bother to tell Persephone or her mother, Demeter, goddess of agriculture, of his decision. One day, Persephone is picking flowers with some nymph friends of hers when, all of a sudden, Hades bursts out of the ground, driving a chariot of black horses. Hades locked Persephone in a beautifully decorated room in the Hall of Hades. He brought her all kinds of delicious food. But Persephone refused to eat. Because She had heard if you ate anything in Hades, you could never leave. She had every intention of leaving as soon as she could figure out how to do so. But finally, in desperate hunger, Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds. persephone screams for help.　Her mother, Demeter hears her screams, but she's too far away to do anything about it.　Demeter wanders all over the earth with torches in her hands looking for Persephone. She is even sadder than she was before, and she's furious with Zeus. Demeter vows that she won't set foot on Mount Olympus and that she won't let anything grow on earth until she sets eyes on her daughter again. A terrible famine assaults the earth, and people are starving everywhere. Zeus decided that Persephone only has to spend part of the year with Hades in the underworld. Demeter reluctantly agrees with this. Every spring, Demeter makes sure flowers are blooming and crops are growing and the fields are green with welcome. Every fall, when Persephone returns to the underworld, Demeter ignores the crops and flowers and lets them die. Each spring, Demeter brings everything to life again, ready to welcome her daughter's return. To the ancient Greeks, that was the reason for the seasons. But the story of Persephone does more than account for a natural phenomenon such as the seasons.  I think this story shows the emotional complexity of Demeter. She is a god who suffers. Persephone suffers too, for every year she must return to the Underworld. These two figures provide standard for people who are grappling with death and grief. The story of Persephone also reveals a trend in Greek mythology in which different gods represent different aspects of the natural world.By defining characters through natural elements, the Greek myths succeed in making the characters and morals relevant to the everyday person's life.