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.
Literary Devices
Simile
Content Warning: This guide includes depictions of racism, discrimination, forced eviction, eugenics, nonconsensual relationships, and rape.
Paul Harding uses similes throughout This Other Eden to enrich the world and characters of the novel. A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things to create a new image or understanding for the reader. In the novel, similes are often used when describing characters and their actions or emotions. When Bridget sees the painting Ethan made of her, she feels intense emotions, “like her heart was a bronze gong insider her ribs and its sounding somehow unstrung and remade her” (138). The use of a simile in this moment, comparing her heart with a bronze gong, amplifies the intensity of the emotions she is feeling. Instead of a heartbeat, her heart is ringing with the loud sound accompanied by a hammer striking a gong. When used to describe actions, similes also lend additional meaning. When Zachary takes Eha to cut down a tree to build his house, a simile is used to describe his approach to the task: “Zachary clambered up like he was a bear scrambling for a beehive full of honey” (177). Bears eagerly pursuing honey is a popular image that evokes commitment and drive. By making this comparison, Harding demonstrates that Zachary is very committed to the work and evokes an image of quick and driven action.
Allusion
An allusion is a reference within a novel to something outside of the text, whether it be another piece of literature, popular culture, or history. While such allusions are usually indirect, prompting readers to make the connection between the work they are reading and the reference to an outside text, Harding uses many explicit biblical allusions in This Other Eden. The purpose of these allusions is to draw comparisons between the biblical stories and experiences of Apple Island and its residents, and the most notable of these are allusions to Noah’s Ark:
The island the Honey’s own ark, then, except that Noah’s ark had come to rest on a mountain and he and his family had scrambled down from the deck and dispersed across the world, across the Hellespont and Arabia, Egypt and through all Africa, across the Mongolian plains and the American west, while the Honey’s kept to their own island ark and left it as seldom as possible (61).
This allusion not only positions the Honeys and Apple Island as Noah’s family and the ark, but also draws a stark comparison between the two. While Noah’s family expanded, the Honeys have shrunk, staying on their island and slowly shrinking, with the rest of the community, into a smaller family. The island is their home and place of safety, with the mainland and its society open only to those who can pass as white. Biblical allusions are spread throughout the novel and contribute to the story by using readers’ knowledge of the story to further characterization and plot.
Imagery
Imagery is used by authors to enhance readers’ imagination of the story. This is used to further create a setting and plot, as well as impacting the overall mood or tone of the novel. In This Other Eden, Harding frequently uses imagery to expand the world of Apple Island and provide extensive description to bring the island and its characters to life. He also joins the use of imagery with plot, using the nature around the characters to assign significance to the events happening. One such example is the moment leading to Esther’s murder of her own father: “The air is mild. The tide is heavy and thuds into the rocks below the bluffs and withdraws from them hissing and gulping” (88). Not only does this scene describe the physical setting of the murder and the nature around it, with loud, powerful waves, but it also gives a sense of foreboding for what is to come. The air is mild, the island itself is calm, but it is the waves and rocks below the bluff that are volatile and violent. It captures a moment in which the soon-to-be murder victim is calm and unaware of the violence that is about to meet him. The contrast is striking as Esther pushes her father off the bluff and into the chaos below.
