Retelling Myths for Children

When the cell phone next to you trills the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, are you pleased to hear those magical notes, even out of context, or do you cringe? Your response might well predict your feelings about the subject of replicating classic stories, like the Greek myths, for young readers.

Is it better that many children know the name "Zeus," even if the so-named character's personality strays from the classical sources? Or better that the myth be retold faithfully, even if that means that some (most?) kids will not make the extra effort needed to connect with it, or won't encounter it until they are older? How can the language of retellings preserve some of the mystery and depth of mytho-poetic communication? How much of that depth—often psychosexual in content—should be suggested? How can we recognize when a simplified version of a myth is reductive?

Despite the persistent popular association of "myth" with "lie," the deepest association of myth is with truth. Myths convey truths, using such vehicles as metaphor and symbol, pleasant literary devices that help make them engaging and memorable. They guarantee that the story will be told and passed on: the pleasure we get from the tale is its life insurance. Simplified versions are reductive when they remove too much of the poetry, or too much of the truth.

Literary quality is the glossy surface, but the gold goes right through. Artistic devices like imagery, and even such obvious crowd-pleasers as the unfolding of the plot, can also be a way of conveying covert meaning. It's crucial for a culture to pass on to its members—particularly the young—the general values and beliefs embedded in the experience of the tale. Sometimes this heritage is in code, disguised as a simile or folded into a plot turn. Changing the code imperils the message. The characters and events in myths—even the most seemingly innocuous or minor of them—as well as the language of the story itself, are very probably part of the code.

Living myths underpin religions. Institutional faiths often devote considerable energy to preserving the "orthodox" forms of their myths, knowing that deviations from orthodoxy can conflict with core values and beliefs. At the same time, religions that are too rigid run the risk of embalming themselves. Christian sects confront perennial questions about "living" Bibles, retellings of Bible stories, and language in services. Should it be pure, or should it be relevant? Judaism has perhaps, historically, been less anxious about this whole area: midrash addresses gaps in the story, enriching rather than revising or simplifying. Classical myths (and myths of other cultures) have no institutional protections against adaptation. Is this a good or a bad thing?

One way to look at the issue is to divide myths (and we'll focus on classical myths here) into those whose narratives seem detachable from complex interpretation, and those whose charged content pervades the tale and may render it problematic. The latter are numerous: many violence-charged myths reflect deep fears expressed through gender constructs. Philomela, raped, then mutilated by having her tongue cut out, weaving events into a tapestry so that her sister (married to the rapist) can learn of them, is not likely to find her way into any retelling for an audience younger than high school age. Myths about women, like Daphne, who must choose between physical violation and surrender of their bodily form, often present the reteller with an exactly analogous choice: horror or deformity. To be faithful to the original is to freight the story with emotional or psychological tension; to adapt it is to distort it.

Zeal to pass on the veneer of classical culture to an ever-younger audience may lead retellers to believe that they can excise the darker elements of a myth, keeping only the top layer. The story of Persephone, for example, tempts retellers to believe that it can be presented as a tale about the return of spring. But at the heart of the tale is the fearsome dark god who appears suddenly from nowhere and drags an unprotected young girl down to the underworld. Some of this mythic content obviously refers to death, sex, obsession, violence, loss, separation, and grief.

Many writers have tried the layer-cake approach. An unscientific sample from the one short shelf devoted to myth in a small local library produced three picture books devoted to the Persephone tale, and several more one-volume collections that included the story. My own bookcase provided another half-dozen. What strategies do the retellers adopt?

The first is to see this as a story about Demeter rather than her daughter. Some writers attempt to make Hades a sympathetic figure, emphasizing the loneliness of his realm and the impossibility of finding a willing bride. He wants her so badly [Vinge]. He is her Uncle Hades [Geringer]. He asks Zeus to OK the deal [Steig, Burke, Aliki]. Some writers distract readers by describing the efforts of nature to interrupt the kidnapping [McCaughrean]. Some cut away from the actual abduction, focusing on Hades's love, impetuous rather than predatory: "Without another thought he seized her" [McDermott]. More outrageous is the suggestion that Persephone herself is the aggressor: "He couldn't resist her." [Burke] How to account for the mother's dereliction of duty? Sometimes Demeter is nearby but inattentive [Vinge, Birrer], or asleep [Waldherr]; another time she is "a thousand miles away" [Geringer]. There is a hint that the girl herself is to blame for having "wandered off by herself" [Barchers]. Tone may be deployed to offset the horror: Steig is irreverent, McCaughrean colloquial ("Don't cry," Hades says, "Be happy!"), Vinge and Birrer are terse. Burke's diction disarms Hades, who "scoops up" the girl and later seems to Persephone "so kind and concerned."

The illustrators also try to help. They may choose not to show the moment when Hades snatches the girl [Burke, Aliki]. A nonrealistic style may mitigate the awfulness of the abduction [McDermott, Steig]. In an otherwise realistic treatment, this particular scene may have some element that defuses it [Geringer, McCaughrean]. Only one version, Waldherr's, acknowledges the horrific nature of the scene, which she alone (revealingly, if untraditionally) sets at night:

Suddenly the earth split in two. Persephone screamed, dropping the narcissus. Out of the abyss leapt a gold chariot pulled by four black horses. Its driver, a tall man, seized Persephone by the waist and pulled her into the chariot. Down, down, they sped . Above them the earth sealed shut with a shudder.

The adoption of Persephone's point of view, the anonymity of the unnamed attacker ("a tall man"), the split in the earth, the repetition of "down, down," and the specific words "waist," "sealed," and "shudder" point to the sexual drama, without making it explicit. Accompanying this stark text with its telling diction is an illustration that puts viewers on the very lip of the abyss, in front of the rearing horses. Around the beasts swirls their fiery breath, orange against the night, graphically indicating Hades's passion. The chthonic god's profile is rendered frightful by the sort of crested helmet that so terrifies Astyanax in The Iliad. Persephone is recognizably a nubile teenager, unreachable in the composition's far left corner, arms outstretched helplessly.

Waldherr does not look away from the dreadful significance of the scene, nor does she interpret it for readers. That gives her version literary and artistic legitimacy, but does it make the story appropriate for the audience indicated by the publisher's "0408" code on the jacket?

If some classical myth material resists attempts to fashion it into a children's story, what about the numerous mythic adventure-tales? While their narratives have complex content to be sure, can't it be separated from the entertaining plot? Can't we learn about Odysseus as a superhero, and later fill in the picture of his idiosyncratic morals, his longing for Penelope, his thirst for revenge? Yes. No doubt it is better that children know of Odysseus-the-hero than not. The risk in this sort of retelling is that the hero will be glorified in a one-dimensional way, and that action will replace all the poetry. It is no accident that while female figures are likely to be diminished in retellings, male figures are likely to be inflated: the originals are already pointing toward these alternatives. A flat cake may be better than no cake, however.

Some myths about heroes that seem to be layered are really saturated, especially when a woman enters the tale: Jason has wonderful adventures, but how can Medea's cold calculation and limitless rage—both murderous—fit into a children's book, when the sexual passions that motivate them are absent? Theseus nobly offers himself for his city, then defeats the monster with a woman's help—but how can Theseus's abandonment of Ariadne be tolerable without the compensatory sexual satisfaction that Dionysus offers her? In doing without those layers, some flavor essential to the whole is missing.

Some myths do lend themselves to children's versions, even if some symbolic content evaporates. As children encounter these myths in later years, in poems and paintings and allusions, layers of meaning may be restored, enriching the flavor of the whole. Some myths, however, must wait until readers are old enough to perceive the subtext and to accept the emotional and psychosexual content. Cupid and Psyche, for instance, is not an adventure story, but a tale meant for the adolescent, richly permeated with ideas about relational maturity, separation, individuality, and personal growth. For younger readers, let the layer-cake adaptation we know as "Beauty and the Beast" suffice.