It leads to his downfall, the story closing with a sweet, contemporary glance at their lives as lord and queen of the Underworld, shepherding the newly deceased towards the land of the dead together. The pomegranate, often shown as the trick that keeps Persephone tied to the Underworld, is in this story brought by Persephone to the Underworld, used to bind her and Hades together as they consummate their marriage.When Persephone faces Zeus at the climax, she challenges him alone, defending against his assault and wounding him herself, driven by her hatred of him and love for the sorrowful queen of the Underworld whom he had threatened. With her, Persephone brings light and change, slowly healing the cracks beginning to show in the foundation of the Underworld and relieving Hades of some of her duties, even saving her life at one point. Where Zeus wants her to join him in Olympus, she flees to the Underworld, into the patient arms of Hades, where love blossoms amongst the souls of the dead. The message repeated throughout the story is illustrated quickly and severely: “Zeus gets what he wants.”
Zeus is the antagonist of this work, rightly so – the God of Gods, selfish and cruel, Zeus forced himself upon Persephone’s first love, a nymph named Charis, right in front of her, the rape ending in the nymph’s transformation into a rose bush. Olympus, a looming obligation to join her detested father, Zeus, spurring her to hide where he could not reach. The Dark Wife twists those ideas, challenging nearly every step of the common myth – Persephone seeks out the Underworld herself after a compelling chance introduction to Hades at Mt. It’s a story of despair, of a mother’s loss, and the changing of the seasons. It’s a story I find enjoyable to begin with, but I’ve always been a fan of Greek myth what really excited me about the story was that the author decided to make Hades a woman as well.įor those unfamiliar, the story is generally told as Hades abducting Persephone and tricking her into staying in the Underworld to be his queen. Without spoiling too much in this introduction, it’s a revisionist retelling of the story between the Greek lord of the Underworld, Hades, and the goddess of spring, Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus. It’s a work that was recommended to me by a friend, available for free online here, and is one that will probably stick with me for a long while after reading it. For today’s informal post, I’d like to discuss Sarah Diemer’s short novel, The Dark Wife.
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