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FOOD IN MYTH & FAIRY TALES.
Term Paper ID:26698
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Role & significance of food in Greek myth of Demeter & Persephone, "Alice in Wonderland," etc.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Role & significance of food in Greek myth of Demeter & Persephone, "Alice in Wonderland," etc.
Paper Introduction:
In one of those peculiar but enduring distinctions that exist between the worlds of high and low culture, the stories of the people of classical Greece have come down to us as “myths” rather than “folktales” – and so are to be considered in general of greater consequence. However, for the purposes of this essay on the importance of food in fairytales, we shall set aide this distinction for the moment because it is from Greek “myth” that comes the archetypal story of food and folklore.
The particular story being referred to is that of Demeter who was for the Greeks the goddess of corn and the harvest. When her daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, Demeter's grief was so great that she neglected the land; no plants grew, and famine devastated the earth. Dismayed at this situation, Zeus, the ruler of the universe, demanded that
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Food has for many people in many cultures a kind ofsymbolic magic: For example, women who are pregnant or who are trying toconceive in many cultures are warned against eating slippery foods thatmight cause the child to slip from the womb and traditional Mexicans worrythat if a woman eats too much very spicy food when she is pregnant than thechild will be born with a fiery temper. However, for thepurposes of this essay on the importance of food in fairytales, we shallset aide this distinction for the moment because it is from Greek "myth"that comes the archetypal story of food and folklore. And sometimesfood is so important in a fairytale that it becomes one of the characters,like the talking yams in African stories or Cinderella's pumpkin, whichsymbolically swallows her up and delivers her in her magically transformedstate to the ball. In a reversal of the usual form, there is thefairy Tinkerbell's drinking of the draft meant for Peter Pan, with nearlyfatal results. Probably since the beginning of humanity, people haveascribed powers beyond the merely nutritional to what they ate. In one of those peculiar but enduring distinctions that exist betweenthe worlds of high and low culture, the stories of the people of classicalGreece have come down to us as "myths" rather than "folktales" - and so areto be considered in general of greater consequence. But if the magic of a foodis too powerful, then we are unable to transform it, and instead ittransforms us and we are made either less than or greater than ordinarilyhuman. In her joy at being reunited with her daughter,Demeter caused the earth to bring forth bright spring flowers and abundantfruit and grain for the harvest. There is the apple that Snow White accepts from thewitch - even as everyone in the audience watching the Disney movie shoutsout for her not to do it. A classic example of the power of food to transform is LewisCarroll's ``Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', although this too does notmeet the classical definition of a fairytale since the story is of recentdate and the author is known. A number of the fairytales with which we are most familiar includefood as a talisman. Eating is one of the primary methods by which humans transform thenatural (the raw plant and animal materials that make up our food) into thecultural and civilized. So why is this the archetypal story of food and fairytales? Becauseit spells out very starkly the idea that food has the power oftransformation. One would think that the girl would learn her lesson; onemight also think that she should have known better to begin with becausethe traditional stories of the British Isles are filled with exhortationsjust as explicit as the labels on Carroll's bottles not to eat anythingoffered by the weefolk and never to eat or drink of anything if one happensto find oneself in Faeryland, for to do so is to ensure that one will findoneself marooned there forever. The particular story being referred to is that of Demeter who was forthe Greeks the goddess of corn and the harvest. Dismayed at this situation, Zeus, the ruler of theuniverse, demanded that his brother Hades return Persephone to her mother.Hades agreed, but before he released the girl, he tricked her into eatingfour pomegranate seeds, an act that would force her to return to him forfour months each year. There are the children Hansel and Gretel who leavebreadcrumbs as a trail, are lured into the witch's cottage with the promiseof cookies and then are trapped and fattened up so that she can eat them.(Indeed the world of fairytales is littered with ogres and other beastieswho want to eat people not merely or even primarily to satisfy basic hungrybut because they will in some way be able to incorporate the power of theirvictims. In a like vein, fairytales bristle with animals and fish that,like the Firebird, promise wishes and magic powers in exchange to a hunteror fisher who promises not to kill and eat them, allowing the human toacquire the magic of the animal without the usual sacrifice. But Carroll clearly meant to evoke thetraditional realms of magic, and within this world Alice is constantlybeing changed by little bottles and packages that exhort her to drink themor eat them. Taboos havebeen placed on certain kinds of foods since into the very earliest momentsof pre-history, when only certain people were allowed to eat certain foodsat certain times. However, her sorrow returned each fallwhen Persephone had to go back to the underworld. We do this both through the processes of cookingand curing and seasoning and combining, but also by the very act of takingfood into our bodies, where our metabolic processes transform it intocivilized flesh - one of the central points of the structuralanthropological theories of Claude Levi-Strauss. The desolation of thewinter season and the death of vegetation were regarded as the yearlymanifestation of Demeter's grief when her daughter was taken from her. When her daughterPersephone was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, Demeter's griefwas so great that she neglected the land; no plants grew, and faminedevastated the earth.
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