Myth

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2007

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Myth

The title itself can refer to several things at once. The idea of a myth suggests an imaginary story or an ancient legend. This immediately prepares the reader for the sense that the poem may deal with a specific myth. In this case, it turns out to be “Orpheus and Eurydice.” However, the poem also suggests that the idea that grieving can end is a myth, as the poem’s emotions are cyclical and return to the beginning due to the reversal of lines in the second half. Further still, Trethewey is examining the strange sensation of her mother being dead in reality while being alive in “dreams” (Lines 6, 13), creating an insecurity as to which state is actually a “myth.” Finally, there is the myth that the speaker could have done anything to stop the “dying” (Lines 1, 18) of the loved one if they had not been “asleep” (Lines 1, 18).

Erebus

“Erebus” (Lines 4, 15) is the personification of primordial darkness, a figure born out of Chaos. However, this is also a word used in Greek mythology to identify a realm that exists between earth and Hades, a limbo where souls await their fate immediately after death. In the poem, the speaker struggles with this idea that the dead soul is waiting somewhere and that they cannot retrieve it. The state of limbo correlates with the liminal space Trethewey has used to describe dreams about her mother. In her interview with Dziamka, Trethewey states, “I’ve dreamed of my mother and imagined going to that liminal place where she is.” The idea of “Erebus” (Lines 4, 15)—the space between sleeping and waking, between the dead and the living—captures the surrealism that surrounds grief: One realizes one will never see a vital loved one again. They hardly seem dead, but they no longer truly exist except in the dreamworld or in memory.

The Asterisk

“Myth” is divided into two parts with an asterisk after the ninth line. As Susan Somers-Willett notes in her analysis, it brings forth questions and associations: “Is it a section break? An eye opening? A sun rising? A gunshot? The asterisk certainly divides the poem into two distinct sections, but its placement invites typographical associations as well” (“On Natasha Trethewey’s ‘Myth’”). There may be several symbolic associations for this typographical choice. A series of asterisks may be used to signify omitted matter. Here, it suggests the aftermath of loss, the moment after Orpheus turns back to find Eurydice gone or when Trethewey wakes after dreaming of her mother. It may also serve as a separation of nighttime from daytime, symbolizing the sun. Since the asterisk is shaped like a star or sun—“*”—it may serve to indicate the moment the memory of the dreaming shifts as reality dawns. The asterisk has also been used to indicate a footnote. Since Native Guard’ poems consistently discuss people who were dismissed as afterthoughts, this usage would fit thematically. Historically, the asterisk was used by a proofreader of Homer to identify lines that were duplicated. Given that this asterisk is the indicator of when the lines reverse in the poem, Trethewey may be using it in the Homeric sense. In many palindrome poems, there is a “hinge,” a moment when the lines reverse themselves, here the asterisk serves as an indication of the hinge. In the opening of Memorial Drive, Trethewey describes a dream in which her mother has “a hole, the size of a quarter, in the center of her forehead. From it comes a light so bright, so piercing, that I suffer the kind of momentary blindness brought on by staring at the sun.” It could be that the asterisk serves as a symbol for the gunshot wound that fatally killed her mother.