Demeter And Persephone What Our Children Are Learning Summary

Intro: There is a problem in the understanding of modern culture and its allusions to classic Greek myths. Despite the belief that myth is irrelevant and doesn’t play a large part in society anymore, myths are actually alluded to in a large portion of modern culture. This belief has affected our ability to understand the messages of said literature. A cause of this problem is the lack of acknowledgement of how often myth is referenced, a qualitative study that reviewed the myth usage in modern literature may remedy this problem
In my research, I will investigate the influences and impacts of Greek mythology on our modern culture, specifically focusing on films and novels published in the last 100 years. For the data collection portion of my
In Karina L. Kerr’s “Demeter and Persephone: What Our Children Are Learning,” she investigates the way that we misinterpret myths through the process of attempting to make them more “kid friendly.” Kerr sees this as an injustice to the myth and the characters in it who are wildly misrepresented in the versions we present to our children. She even goes as far as to claim that “Greek society devalued women in general, but our twentieth century retellings for children devalue women even more than the originals” (16). Similarly, Mary R. Lefkowitz’s “Women in Greek Myth” she examines the strengths and weaknesses of the female figures presented in famous myths. She agrees with Kerr’s commentary that women are often devalued and portrayed as weak, but she also brings forth the point that many of the goddesses themselves innately hold power and sway with the men and that most of the less powerful women are the mortals. She also brings forth the idea that the women chosen to be portrayed in myth were either chosen “because of their distinguished genealogy...their beauty...for their courage...or for their