Kristen's Self-analysis

I found it a little difficult to decide how i wanted to rewrite this story initially, I think partly because I was thinking about it a little too much, I wanted to be able to put all of the details into my retelling but in more subtle and unspecific ways but I didnt know who I wanted to tell the story through. When we were first given the assignment I sat down and wrote out a quick summary of the story and parts of it that I could rememeber, not in any particular order but just a couple of sentences here and there. I realised that none of what I had written actually included many specific details of the events of the story but rather I happened to write down what I thought they were thinking at the time of big events, their confusions and emotions, so rather than thinking about it further I decided to leave all of it untill before we had to post it up on the blog. But then when I came to write it out again my perspective of each characters emotions, or importance within the story had changed somewhat.

I wanted to give each main character the chance to speak, so I started with Persephones mother. I think initially her character comes across as slightly weaker, missing a part of her (her daughter) that obviously seems so important. I think I showed the mothers sense of separation from her daughter a lot more strongly than Persephones concerns over missing her mother. Possibly because it can be more difficult for a parent to let go than the child, I did want this to ring through whiles I painted the picture of the mother. However when she releases herself from the tasks of caring for the earth I hoped for this to show her strength and control. She is responsible for the continuation of the earth really, so her demands for the people to fend for themselves was supposed to show how integral to the story she is, even if she appears weak at times.

Persephones character is supposed to show an adolescent girl in an undecided yet curious mind. She is concerned for her present situation, somewhere unknown, taken unwillingly, however she's willing to find out what opportunities her present situation can bring her. If she can overcome her fears and give in to the temptation of curiosity then a world of new possibilities could be opened to her.
I gave Hades a relatively small space to voice his intentions because I didn't think that his story needed an excessive amount of explination. In my retelling of this story I gave Hades a role that was more obligatory than anything else. I wanted to give the impression that his job of manning the underworld was not because he was incessently evil but that he felt that it was just 'the way the world worked'. Someone had to have the job, so why not him, and so why fight it? The more you resist the more difficult to accept it will be. This is what Hades here was to sell to Persephone, 'Don't fight being my wife, I'll treat you alright so you may as well try an enjoy yourself.' However his words and manner of speach still has an air of authority and strength showing the importance and power he has as master of the underworld. I put his words in itallics as well to show a break and change in character.

The last paragraph of speach was supposed to be Zeus. I had intended to make this paragraph bold to give the text an extra dimension that highlighted Zeus' apparent position of authority, King of Gods, and well I suppose if there was a hierarchy lets say he would be at the top. But apparently I unfortunately forgot to change the text to bold so none of you would have picked up on that but at least now I get a chance to explain. However despite this and without the bold text, I think that Zeus appears to be slighlty powerless towards the situation. Persephone ate some of the pomegranates and because of this she is bound by rule to spend part of the year on earth and another part in the underworld as Hades' wife. But again I think its shows how they choose to accept its 'the way the world works', we don't see Zeus trying to fight the fact that Persephone has to spend time with Hades in the underworld. It was also supposed to show how the Gods are dependent on the earth for certain things, kind of highlighting a slightly subtle tone of vanity among the Gods as they rely on offerings from the earth to a certain degree.

As a whole I'm not sure how inventive my story ended up as I tried to stick to a more convetional retelling of the story but I just wanted to highlight more subtle tones of emotions and possibilities by narrating the inner thoughts of these characters and I hope it came through a little in my story!