51 pages • 1 hour read
Paul HardingThis Other Eden
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Geographical Context: Malaga Island
Content Warning: This guide includes depictions of racism, discrimination, forced eviction, eugenics, nonconsensual relationships, and rape.
Apple Island of This Other Eden is based off the real Malaga Island in Maine and the story of its residents. In the 1800s and early 1900s, the island was home to a racially diverse community that came under criticism, leading to eviction. There are many similarities between This Other Eden and the real Malaga Island community, including its founding, community life, and eviction. The Darlings were one of Malaga’s early families, tracing their roots to Benjamin Darling:
Legend has it that in 1794, he was given his freedom and money to buy Horse Island, after saving the Captain’s life during a shipwreck [...] His descendants later settled on various owned and unowned islands in eastern Casco Bay, and were among the first to reside on Malaga (“Malage Island: An Overview of its Cultural and Natural History.” Maine Coast Heritage Trust, 6 July 2009).
The story of Benjamin Darling and his family draws close comparisons to the Honeys of This Other Eden. Benjamin Honey, like Benjamin Darling, is believed to have been enslaved and freed, using the reward from a captain to start a new life. Other characters are based on real families from history, like the Larks. Their real-life counterparts, the Marks, saw most of their ranks sent to the Home for the Feebleminded in New Gloucester.
The eviction of Malaga Island stemmed from the disapproval of the community by nearby mainland towns. With Maine’s tourism industry then on the rise, and coastal vacation spots and resorts popping up, people saw the island as a blight. Additionally, with the rise of eugenics, many saw the poverty and racial diversity of Malaga Island’s community as another hindrance to this new economy. When the eviction order came, and it was determined that the State would purchase the island to prevent resettlement, the course of events closely resembles that of This Other Eden:
Any structures not removed by eviction day were razed to discourage residents from returning-except for the new schoolhouse (which was moved in 1912 to Louds Island in Muscongus Bay). In a final act of irreverence, the remains of Malaga’s deceased were exhumed in 1912 (“Malage Island: An Overview of its Cultural and Natural History”).
Some of the island families moved their houses, like Eha Honey does in the novel, while others were simply forced to flee. The exhuming of graves also occurs, erasing the community on Malaga Island completely. While the island has never been resettled, ownership of it has changed multiple times. In 2001, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) purchased Malaga Island “to protect the island from development, foster low-impact recreation, and sustain the long tradition of island use by local fishermen” (“Malage Island: An Overview of its Cultural and Natural History”). In today’s world, over a hundred years since the eviction, tourists can visit the island and even hike a trail around it.
Social Context: Eugenics
Eugenics play an important role in the events of This Other Eden, as the rise of the theory and its supporters catalyze the eviction of the families living on Apple Island. Eugenics has a long history and despite initial popularity among scientists and world leaders, the theory lost support and came under severe criticism after it was used during World War II by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust. Eugenics is defined as “the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans,” and first rooted in Charles Darwin’s work on the theory of natural selection (Wilson, Philip K. “Eugenics.” Encyclopaedia Britannica). As Darwin’s theory of evolution found a place in society, people sought to apply these ideas to the social construct of race. Race, at the time, was treated like a biologically distinct marker between groups of people akin to different animal species. This mis-application of Darwin’s ideas, known as social Darwinism, was promoted by English anthropologist Herbert Spencer who coined the term “survival of the fittest.” Through social Darwinism, eugenics found a greater foothold, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the eugenics movement gained traction, turning its attention to the disadvantaged and marginalized: “the eugenics movement (which held that moral standards, income, and competency were linked to race, and that humans could be ‘improved’ through selective breeding) became more dominant in the mainstream consciousness–affecting communities across the nation” (“Malage Island: An Overview of its Cultural and Natural History.” Maine Coast Heritage Trust, 6 July 2009). One such community was that of Malaga Island in Maine, whose tenants’ eviction stemmed from the government’s use of eugenic ideas to justify their breaking up of the community. Like many others, the inhabitants of Malaga Island were evicted, with residents placed under State control to prevent the community from expanding: The theory of eugenics not only seeks to foster “desirable” traits but also attempts to eliminate those not seen as “desirable.” This was accomplished through breaking up communities, forcing sterilization of populations to prevent future generations, and institutionalizing individuals deemed “unfit” to reproduce, such as the Larks in This Other Eden.
