Persephone as Epistemological Impasse: The Real Body of Sydney Bristow and ‘The Woman Here Depicted’

From the pilot episode onwards, Alias’ heroine, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), finds herself within a Persephone complex rich in similarities to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. As with Korê, Sydney is a young woman alone in the world as her mother, Laura Bristow (Lina Olin), died early in Sydney’s childhood, leaving Sydney to the care of an estranged father, Jack Bristow (Victor Garber). Subsequently, as a young adult Sydney is seduced into an ‘underground’ realm in the form of a secret division of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) called ‘SD-6’ (‘Section Disparue’ — French for ‘the section that does not exist’). There, a Hades figure, Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) recruits her as a spy with, as it transpires, the questionable consent of her father. Once immersed in this (yet to be revealed) criminal underworld, Sydney goes through several real and symbolic deaths and rebirths and discovers her body bears the physical markers named in the 500 year old Rambaldi prophecy: ‘Mullie Hick Petrata’ — The Chosen One. This discovery requires Sydney recover her dead mother (now believed alive as former KGB spy Irina Derevko) in order to distinguish herself from the physical likeness she shares with her. Sydney is mentally and bodily penetrated in relation to this prophecy in a series of symbolic rapes via scientific experiments performed without her consent. She discovers her mother’s two sisters who each invoke Hekate as Demeter’s helpmate in the search for her lost daughter, for as it turns out, Sydney also has a half-sister in her own image — Nadia Santos (Mia Maestro) — who has, likewise, been recruited into the criminal underworld (without consent) and is also named in the Rambaldi prophecy.