Rita Dove Literary Analysis

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home. She seems to be talking about the house in a manner that would indicate it is a photographic negative; this emphasizes race as an alienating factor. Dove’s writing usually charts a sense of displacement and this seems to be the case in “The Old Neighborhood”. In My Mother Enters the Work Force Dove does not use her home theme, but in The Bistro Styx, which is a small excerpt from a works entitled Mother Love, Dove does make references to home. This poem is a recasting of the story of Demeter and Persephone from ancient Greek mythology. In short, Hades kidnaps Persephone from her home, and Demeter, her mother goes insane trying to get her back. Demeter is able to go after Persephone only to find that too late Persephone has already “adapted” to life in the underworld, and must remain there because she ate the fruit of the dead. Dove’s version is much the same and takes place in Paris. It deals with loss of home and a home coming that was ...

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