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Demeter's relationship with Persephone
Persephone and Nature
Reflection of Mother - Daughter realtionships
What are the Key themes explored in Carol Ann Duffy's "Demeter"?
Where I lived – winter and hard earth.
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,
to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.
Imagery associated with Demeter
Represents Demeter's grief
She can't break out of her grief even if she tries (stanza 2)
Winter imagery
"hard earth" "frozen lake"
Duffy also uses cacophony:
e.g. :
"granite, flint"
The same imagery reflects the harsh cold of winter.
Demeter's grief is literally winter.
This is a reference to the orignal myth.
This gives the reader an audio level to the harsh environment
Connection to Duffy
Carol Ann Duffy suffered herself with depression.
She may have empathized with the relationship between winter and depression
Duffy's representation of Demeter
Background information
She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,
in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
The majority of poems in "The World's Wife" are representations of feminist values. However, "Demeter" focuses on the themes of nature and the bond between a mother and daughter.
The setting, which is from Demeter's perspective, undergoes a rapid change which reflects her changing emotions
Persephone's presence breaks Demeter's grief.
This is being compared to how Spring breaks Winter.
Through natural, innocent imagery:
"spring's flowers" "bare feet"
Syntax in the 3rd stanza
Use of sibilance
Duffy uses sibilance when describing Persephone's return.
"She came from a long long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields"
... spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon,
with the small shy mouth of a new moon
Enjambement and Caesura:
Short, quick phrases.
Connotes desperation. When read aloud it sounds breathless.
"at last" : suggests she has been anticipating her return.
Key Themes:
Shows us Demeter's perception of Persephone
Could symbolise the melting of Demeter's winter/grief.
Exaggerates the difference between Demeter and Persephone, as well as winter versus spring
Where I lived – winter and hard earth.
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,
to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.
She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,
in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon,
with the small shy mouth of a new moon.
"the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon,
with the small shy mouth of a new moon."
Nature is also personified to welcome Persephone home.
Implies that even nature has been anticipating her return.
History
Metaphorical representation of how important Persephone is.
Blue: calm, daylight, flowers, happiness.
The Myth Behind The Poem
Structure
Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, the harvest. Hades, god of the underworld, abducted her daughter Persephone.
Demeter asked Zeus, Hades' brother, to return Persephone. When Zeus refused, Demeter withheld the harvest from man until Zeus relented.
He agreed to allow Persephone’s return if she had not eaten while with Hades. However, Persephone had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds in the underworld. Zeus determined that she would spend 6 months with her mother and 6 months with Hades.
This is the mythic origin of the six months of spring and summer when Persephone walks the earth with her mother and the 6 months of fall and winter when Persephone must return to the underworld.
Duffy has used a sonnet structure
There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.
In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called a couplet.
The Mother Daughter Relationship
We can see this in Demeter.
Problem = grief of her loss of Persephone, as well as its impact on nature
Duffy uses imagery and syntax to expose her opinion of the love between a mother and daughter.
Even though they are apart their love is pure and untouched by Hades.
Solution = Persephone returns, and nature rejuvinates.
However, Duffy uses four tercets instead of the typical 3 quatrains of a sonnet
Carol Ann Duffy went on to write other poems exploring the realationships between mother and daughter
For example:
"Catrin" - explores Duffy's own relationship with her daughter.
"my daughter, my girl"
Conclusion:
What are the Key themes explored in Carol Ann Duffy's "Demeter"?
Nature: seasons, imagery
Grief: natural imagery
Mother - Daughter relationships is the key theme.
metaphorically shows that her daughter means the world to her