Term Papers on Demeter And Persephone

Term Paper Title	Demeter And Persephone
# of Words	1859
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	7.44

Demeter and Persephone

     In the Story of Demeter and Persephone we learn about the relationship between parents and their children.  More importantly, this relationship is a mother daughter relationship and has Ideas that Greek culture might have practiced.  In this story we also see the growth of characters and the changes that they go through because of the actions by others around them.
     Demeter is the beautiful goddess who is sister to Zeus.  Persephone also visually stunning and lovely, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter.  Already from this relationship we can see that in Greek mythology there was a lot of marrying within the family.  This practice might have been reflective of Greek society at that time.
     In order to please his brother Hades, Zeus tells him that he can go and take his daughter Persephone to be his wife.  While Persephone was playing with her friends in the beautiful outdoors picking flowers, she was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld.  It would seem to the ancient Greeks that it was a mans world and Father knew best.  Without consulting Demeter about his brother marrying their daughter, Zeus just gave her away.  Worst of all he did not ask Persephone how she felt about this whole arrangement.   It was as if children were the possessions of their parents and had no say in their future plans.  As she was being carried away she led out a cry calling her father Zeus and all the other gods to help her, but no one came.
     The only ones who heard her pleas were Hecate, goddess of the moon and daughter of Persaeus, and lord Helius the sun god, son of Hyperion.  Them hearing her pleas was like children identifying with each other of the mistreatment of parents to their children.  It was as if they had seen or heard of this happening before, and now it was taking place again.
     When Demeter heard of this, she was greatly in pain.  It was as if her very heart had been ripped or torn out of her body.  She did not know who had taken her daughter or how it happened but she knew that it took place and that made it painful for her.  This hurt her very much, so she stopped whatever she was doing and went to look for the daughter that she loved so much.  She tore off all her decorative head gear and elaborate clothing that she had on and went about the earth searching.  In her efforts to find her daughter she gave up things that people do in their day to day lives, especially what gods do.  She gave up eating ambrosia, nectar or even taking a bath.  These sacrifices were done out of love for her daughter and the need to find her.
     She had roamed all over the Earth carrying a torch to light the way for her.  On the tenth day she ran into Hecate, who told her that she had heard Persephone’s  cries but saw nothing.  Then they both left and went to look for Helius, who looked over gods and human beings.  If anyone knew something, he probably did.  Demeter appealed to him to tell her anything he knew that could help her find her daughter.  The real truth was finally revealed to Demeter.  First he told her his pity for her grief then proceeded to tell her what took place and who was involved.  He said it was her own brother Zeus who gave Persephone to Hades so she can be his wife.  He witnessed  him take her back to the Underworld with his horses and chariots.  Helius told Demeter to stop with her sadness and that her endless anger will not do her any good.  He said Hades was not such a bad husband for her daughter, after all he is her brother too and is lord of the Underworld.
     After that encounter, Demeter felt only worse as if she had lost all hope and that she would probably never see her daughter again.  She was very angry with Zeus for what he had done.  She stayed away from the other gods and did not attend any of their gatherings on Olympus.  Zeus betrayed her and it was grounds for her to leave him completely.  In our time it would be as if she had filed for a divorce and severed all ties with Zeus’ side of the family.  In this case she is also related to them so its even harder on her. ...

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