Sisters Of Persiphone

A Commentary On:
“Two Sisters of Persephone” by Sylvia Plath

According to Greek mythology, Persephone was the beautiful daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of the harvest/fertilitygoddess. One day Hades kidnapped her and took her to the underworld where she became his wife, and thus queen of the underworld. Her mother became so angry that she withdrew herself and ceased the growth ofthe earth, making everywhere infertile. Seeing this, Zeus then sent to get his daughter back. However, she had already eaten a pomegranate that bound her to the underworld and as a result she was onlyable to return to the earth for six months of every year. Her arrival back to the earth resulted in her mother’s return and the growth of nature once more, subsequently making Persephone the goddessof spring. Her annual arrival to and departure from the earth resulted in a cycle that brought about winter and spring marked by the respective budding and death of nature. Consequently, she wasforced to live two contrasting lives in two different environments, and it is this duality upon which Sylvia Plath focuses in her poem entitled “Two Sister of Persephone”, which is alluded to in the verytitle itself. Initially, the title depicts the idea of Persephone’s two actual sisters, but the imagery, diction, structure and tone of the succeeding stanzas effectively reveal that it is in factreferring to the dual personalities of the single individual, Persephone.
“Two Sisters of Persephone” is filled with opposing images that successfully conveys the concept of duality. The first mostobvious of which is the contrast of “shade and light” that depicts darkness and cover compared with light and exposure. Another major contrasting image present throughout the play is fertility versusinfertility. Infertility is portrayed throughout second and third stanzas. Images such as the “dry ticks”, the “barren enterprise”, her eyes becoming “rat – shrewd” and her “meager frame” all depict...