The Hydra As An Allusion:
Unexpected Manifestations
The Hydra, one of Greek mythology’s terrifying monsters, serves as a literary allusion to unexpected manifestations, with its ability to spontaneously regenerate its serpent-like heads after they have been completely severed. Hercules, in one of his labours for attaining immortality, was sent to the marshes of Lerna to slay the multi- headed serpent beast called the Hydra. To Hercules surprise, when he severed one head of the beast with his sword, more heads grew in its place, proving Hercules’ quest to kill the Hydra to be more difficult than he had expected. Mel Stein references this allusion when describing problems with fighting the drug trade of cocaine, “Yet, it had no real effect. The supplies of cocaine from Columbia remained constant and as one of the Hydra’s heads was cut off, another dozen sprang up to replace it.” No matter how many cocaine suppliers were shut down, more seemed to materialize in their place just as the Hydra’s many serpent heads would persistently regenerate themselves.
Works Cited
Stein, Mel White Lines, 1997
Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen and Penny Stock. “ The Hydra” The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Unexpected Manifestations
The Hydra, one of Greek mythology’s terrifying monsters, serves as a literary allusion to unexpected manifestations, with its ability to spontaneously regenerate its serpent-like heads after they have been completely severed. Hercules, in one of his labours for attaining immortality, was sent to the marshes of Lerna to slay the multi- headed serpent beast called the Hydra. To Hercules surprise, when he severed one head of the beast with his sword, more heads grew in its place, proving Hercules’ quest to kill the Hydra to be more difficult than he had expected. Mel Stein references this allusion when describing problems with fighting the drug trade of cocaine, “Yet, it had no real effect. The supplies of cocaine from Columbia remained constant and as one of the Hydra’s heads was cut off, another dozen sprang up to replace it.” No matter how many cocaine suppliers were shut down, more seemed to materialize in their place just as the Hydra’s many serpent heads would persistently regenerate themselves.
Works Cited
Stein, Mel White Lines, 1997
Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen and Penny Stock. “ The Hydra” The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
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