Persephone Poems Essay
Introduction
The Persephone poems have well articulated themes showing everyday relationships within families. There is the need for freedom as expressed by the persona hampered by the cruelty of her father and the speechlessness of the mother. However, contrary to the protectiveness of parents for the safety of their children, the father takes advantage of her daughter, while the mother stays helplessly quiet. That is unimaginable, though a reality in most families where children suffer molestation and no one stands out at their defense. In the Persephone poems, the writer creatively explores the themes of isolation, lust and allusions.
Isolation is prominent in the poem as told through the story of the young girls facing a solitary life in separation from her community. This leaves the girl at the mercy of the atrocities she faces in the hands of her father and no protection from anyone, “No one, not even her mother says anything about this.” There is no respect for the feelings of the persona and mostly through the father, the maltreatment makes her position in the family like that of an outsider, “watch him treat his daughter like one would a shadow.”
Lust is eminent in the poem too and the girl adequately explains her longing for a relationship. “She wonders about the nigger who’ll make her flutter in ways her father couldn’t.” the feelings the woman has about relationships face a distortion of development with anxiety to grow up. Though her parents would wish to let her remain as the child, they had always known. There is use of imagery and symbols and wordplay with the persona working through allusion. The poems do not have a rhyme scheme and to make up for this, the poet weaves in some sneaky sound effects to make poems sing. Example of setting is through the way Persephone falls into Hades. Another symbolism is in the way the poems draws from Demeter and Persephone.
Through the narration of the poet, the audience knows so much about the poems from the start. The content of the poems reveal underlying issues like the association the persona has with her family. In its simple language, it shows the controlling nature of the girl’s father and the withdrawal her mother has on issues where she could intervene. “Her mother watched as he took her, looked the other way, closed the curtains.” It is through the mother that she can confide her problems but in her closed up nature, the girl remains to the pains of inflicted in her life by her father’s cruelty.
Conclusion
It is through illusions, isolation, lust and controls that the story of the young girl comes out through the Persephone Poems. Throughout the poem, there is utter control in the family with the father being too strict with her daughter and the mother taking a dormant role as expected from the positioning women had in the society. This gives the father an upper hand in the pain felt by the girl leaving her to fantasies and allusions throughout her life. The child has no protection even in her own home and the person who should take care of her only makes her life miserable through lusting fulfillments of incest. The poem, therefore, guides the reader through the personas pains of isolation, illusions and fantasies of a world she longs for like, “thorns turn into roses.”
