What is Pomegranate?

The pomegranate that Eli fed Lilia towards the beginning of the novel served as an allusion to Greek mythology. According to Greek mythology, Hades had kidnapped Persephone and brought her into the underworld with him. There was a rule that if a prisoner of the underworld ate during their stay, they would be condemned to stay forever. Hades tricked Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds and she was thus required to spend six months of each year in the underworld with him.