Herakles’s Grandmother Character Analysis

Herakles’s grandmother lives with Herakles’s mother and the rest of Herakles’s family in Hades. She’s a wise, chatty old woman who likes to tell long-winded stories about her travels to Argentina and her past as a photographer. When Geryon visits Hades, she shows him a 15-minute exposure photograph she took of a volcano that erupted on Hades in 1923, entitled “Red Patience.” Geryon finds the photo equal parts “disturbing” for its portrayal of destruction, and fascinating for the way it shows him how one may use photography to impose the illusion of control over time. Geryon later captures his own 15-minute exposure photograph of a fly drowning in a pail of water. Geryon is also struck by the old woman’s tales of Lava Man, who was imprisoned in a local jail during the eruption and was the disaster’s only known survivor. Toward the end of Geryon’s stay in Hades, he, Herakles, and Herakles’s grandmother visit the active volcano that was the subject of “Red Patience.”