A Man with a Hungry Nature

There were many things that stood out as I read this story. First, nature is representing the gods once again (just like Gilgamesh and the Cedar Forest) and the gods continue to punish people. When Ceres decides to show Eryschithon her power and let him know that she isn't someone you can fool around with, she decides to punish him with hunger. Ceres, being a goddess, probably predicted how the story would end and chose this punishment to enjoy watching as Eryschithon consumed the last bits of his body. I think that this is actually a very funny punishment since it must be very entertaining to watch a person who thought of himself as very high end up so low.

Returning to nature playing a big role here, it is the destruction of a tree that causes all the trouble with Ceres. Man has tried to conquer nature over centuries and texts like Gilgamesh or the Bible prove this. Ceres obviously loved her tree and went to extremes to make sure that he who was responsible for these actions payed for them. I've seen a pattern in texts were man tries to conquer nature in which man always ends up defeated. I don't know if it's something human kind has known all along -that man will always lose against nature- but even today man keeps trying to push nature's fragile balance to save themselves from the difficult situation in which they now find themselves in.

I found that nature is very important for this part of the story since its what causes Eryschithon wealth and sanity to crumble. Apart from nature, I found that another very important aspect to the development of the story is the punishment. As I mentioned before, Ceres probably already knew what would happen and expected it to happen. The gods have a huge influence on the course of people's lives and people are incapable of avoiding this. The helplessness towards the gods is something that all humans have seen themselves in at some point. Even the Catholic God today has a big influence on the way that people live every day.