Comparing The Pomegranate 'And The Bistro Styx'

Mothers, Daughters, and Myths “The Pomegranate” by Eaven Bolend and “The Bistro Styx” by Rita Dove are both poems that relate mother/daughter relationships to the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. In “The Pomegranate” the narrator discusses her personal relation to the myth and the reality of her daughter’s growing relation to the tale. “The Bistro Styx” explores a mother who no longer lives with her daughter and uses the myth to display the divide that is already between the two. Both of these poems utilize details from the myth itself, symbolism through fruit and food, and the idea of the underworld to analyze the relationships between two mothers and their daughters. “The only legend I have ever loved is the story of a daughter lost

The title refers to the River Styx which must be crossed in order to get to the underworld. The bistro they attended is a type of French restaurant with “double glass doors” (2-3) and “parquet” (6) flooring and contrasts greatly with the hell-like image that is associated with crossing the River Styx. Even in the nice setting of the bistro, the mother and daughter still struggle to bridge the gap between them. They spoke in a “hazarded” (15) and cautious manner. Given the setting of the bistro, rather than one of their own homes and the daughter’s “delicate rebuff” (43) to her mother’s offer to visit her studio, their relationship seems to be almost business-like in nature.

In the passage, the narrator calls her daughter her “blighted child” (14) referencing that her daughter is already in the underworld and that it is already the barren winter that signified the separation of Demeter and Persephone. It can also be insinuated that when the narrator calls her daughter “a cliche...an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde,” (18-19) that she believes that her daughter’s current situation is to be partially blamed on her boyfriend, the “Great Artist” (24), much like Hades was to blame for stealing Persephone and taking her to the

In the myth the pomegranate was used by Hades to ensure that Persephone had to return back to him in the underworld. Though this particular fruit wasn’t directly mentioned in both pieces, fruit does play a key role in expressing the relationships between the daughters and the underworld, and expressing their mother’s opinions about that relationship.

“The Pomegranate” displays fruit in a similar way as the myth does. The mother remembers “the pomegranate!” (29) in the myth and relates it to the “plate of uncut fruit” (28) she sees in her daughter’s room when walking past. She grieves the fact that her daughter has “reached a hand out and plucked a pomegranate” (32-33) and “will wake up… [and] hold the papery flushed skin in her hand. And to her lips” (52-54) taking the final steps toward an adult