"Eden" - Themes and Analysis
- Nature having a spirit.
- The inevitability of death that the characters experience.
- Nature trying to cleanse itself of human touch.
- Lives are going to be lost in some way, whether it is through saving the environment or facing the repercussions of messing it up.
- A little respect for nature goes a long way.
- The world will heal itself and recover eventually whether we will it to or not.
Throughout the novel, the group constantly feels as if it is being watched by some greater power or through eyes in the bushes while they are travelling. This feeling is overlapped with the description of a power that can connect and flow through everything in nature, giving the reader and the characters an impression that nature can work in unprecedented ways to fix itself. As Kat prepares to be killed by the spirit in the same way that all her groupmates were she thinks to herself, “[the land] has been swallowing us this whole time”(Lebbon 76). Personifying nature in this way and giving it a tangible defense mechanism against humans goes to develop the theme that the world will recover one way or another. This is because while in the story, natures power to heal is directly represented through their ability to kick humans out of the ‘Virgin Zones’, in real life we know that nature will be around long after humans are gone, thus returning to an unpolluted wild. We see this throughout ecohorror works as mentioned by Jessica Avery in her analysis of Eden "The reverse [humans harming nature] is what lies at the heart of eco-horror: nature becomes aggressive, nature becomes sentient, nature revolts"(Avery).
The emotion that is most provoked throughout the novel is a sense of dread felt by the members of the expedition as they begin to come to terms with the fact that they will likely die at the hands of Eden, whether they want to or not. This is a common ecohorror element as seen in our other sources like The Day After Tomorrow in which the characters are sure that the storms will be the cause of their demise. In this sense the characters feel powerless which brings up a good parallel to those who lost their lives to the effects of climate change, not being able to stop it or know of the danger individually they were “deaths that had been easily preventable if public information had been more forthcoming from governments that… denied, the shattering effects of climate change” (Lebbon 25). The author uses these emotions to try to build sympathy from the reader for those who are going to lose their lives to climate change in the future. This is an effective means of raising awareness and a caring attitude towards the environment as the sheer magnitude of destruction that is described in the novel makes the heart throb for those who will be effected most by climate change in the future, thus inspiring an attitude to stop it.
The author provides a lot of commentary on the advantages and disadvantages of doing something so radical as creating exclusionary zones and driving people out of their homes in order to preserve nature. These actions inevitably create conflict, which causes the reader to ponder, would it be better for less people to be harmed at the hands of humans through the creation of these zones as many were “displaced to resettlement camps where hunger, crime and disease were rife”(Lebbon 25). Or, whether it would be better to let nature take the lives itself as it would reclaim areas for itself in a way through flooding and natural disasters. Pondering this question leaves the reader to think about one of the central themes of the novel, which is that at this point in human history, we are passed the point of whether or not human lives will be lost due to, or in the fight against climate change, and that we can only think of how bad it will be, not whether or not it will be.
Conclusion:
Eden is a classic climate change ecohorror novel which inspires a sense of impending doom in readers, allowing them to more seriously consider the urgency with which we are tackling climate change in real life.
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- Eden - Overview Zachary Harrison