Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the East; in Eden…” (Genesis 2:8). The Garden of Eden incorporates into the biblical story of God’s creation of the Earth and fall to sin by Adam and Eve. The Garden, which Bible scholars believe is located in the Middle East, draws connections with the short story The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The Monkey Garden in The House On Mango Street connects parallels and bases its roots within the biblical Garden of Eden due to the interpretation of the monkey and the Monkey Garden in addition to the significance of the actions acted towards the children.
The Monkey Garden and the role of the monkey show similarities with the Garden of Eden. In The House On Mango Street, the monkey
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“The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1:12). The Monkey Garden has a direct comparison because of the ability to sustain plants life like “sunflowers”, “cockscombs” ,and “peach trees.” Not only this, the Bible proclaims God’s creation of animals. The chapter of Genesis professes that God “...let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky” (1:20) in conjunction with Sandra Cisnero inserting “dizzy bees” into her story. Another example includes the appearance of the Garden of Eden after the temptation of Eve by the serpent. According to the book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve committed original sin, they lived lives with pain and sorrow. “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field” Genesis (3:17-18). In comparison, the Monkey Garden changed in nature of the monkey moved to Kentucky. The evil of the green cage opened, and original sin released itself into the world. “Flowers stopped obeying the little bricks that kept them from growing beyond their paths. Weeds mixed in. Dead cars appeared overnight like mushrooms.” Chaos and evil overpowered the garden similarly like the world after the first sin was completed. The
“The Ground That Opened Its Mouth: The Ground’s Response to Human Violence in Genesis 4”, written by Duke University’s Mari Jorstad, is a scholarly article that covers the idea that the ground and the early humans did indeed have a connection. Furthermore, Dr. Jorstad’s thesis appears to be that the ground is responsive to God’s will, and thus opposes human rebellion and brutality. In other words, the ground reflects God’s will and this often times clashes with humans and their behavior. Dr. Jorstad, in her article, discusses examples that exemplify her point from the Book of Genesis, specifically in relation to Cain, Adam and Noah. To start, Dr. Jorstad establishes that herself, as well as many other scholars, have interpreted the ground as its own being when talking about early Genesis stories.
Consequently, One Foot in Eden is filled with biblical allusions, names, and references (Shurbutt). The most obvious biblical allusion is, of course, in the title One Foot in Eden by just barely being in the garden but more on the side of sin which we see many examples of throughout the novel. In the Old Testament of the Bible, God sends a great flood to rid the world of sin which is paralleled in the novel as Carolina Power Company building a dam which will cause the area to flood. Especially the dynamic between Amy and Holland is where the reader will understand many religious allusions. Amy uses bathing as her means at seducing Holland which is similar to the Biblical story of King David and Bathsheba.
“The Sky Tree” reveals beliefs about nature, complex religious beliefs and strong social value. “The Sky Tree” shows animals being involved in everyday life. All the animals including, “Beaver, mink, muskrat brought up paw full of soil and placed on turtle 's back until they had made an island”(20).The earth was formed from the animals. “The Sky Tree” also shows complex religious beliefs. After Old Man decided to cut the tree to survive he “cut the tree, it
“Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron. Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt. […] They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned to fling a scornful gift, and the earth
1. I think they find it necessary to move so often because it has been a dream for the family of six to have a piece of property like the houses shown on TV. The story begins when the family buys a new house on Mango Street. This new house is the first the family has owned and does not fulfill their dream. The house is simply not big enough for the family.
Beauty is a very powerful and prominent thing. It’s what makes you get out of bed in the mornings and makes the world go round. Despite all that, there are some negatives of it as well. “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros gives a window back in time to a point where a little girl named Esperanza grows up on the streets of Chicago. Through the numerous rapes, abusive relationships, and the absence of respect for women, Cisneros portrays a theme that beauty is a double edged sword through the characters Esperanza and Sally.
In John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden, the author explores mankind’s endeavor to overcome internal and worldly evil by utilizing biblical allusions and circular prose. One can infer that the novel is a great biblical allusion with the story of Cain and Abel from the Book of Genesis being a reoccurring insinuation. Steinbeck applies these biblical allusions to specify the moral and immoral characters in his novel. For example, Charles Trask receives a “long and crinkled scar” on his forehead that “turns dark brown” while he is filled with a malevolent rage (46). Later on in the story, Cathy Ames is also marked with a scar during a grisly altercation with the pimp she was exploiting.
Director of the postmodernist film 'Pleasantville ' (1998), Gary Ross, incorporates the idea of change through the use of intertextuality with a wide range of historical and biblical references along with literature and artwork. He uses allusions from the references to demonstrate the idea that utopias work well only in theory and that life cannot be scripted. The postmodernist film reflects the way society is constantly changing; beginning as a stereotypical perfect, passionless life in the 1950 's and ending as a society with flaws, imperfections and knowledge. Ross shows this by repeating the techniques of intertextuality, along with allusions, parody, pastiche and cinematography to convey the idea of change. Ross plays with the idea of religion in his attempts to show the changes occurring in 'Pleasantville ' throughout the film.
Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden which was a place of youth and innocence, much like nature and the flower in the poem. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge. Eve ate the fruit from the tree, committing the first sin. Then Eve tempted Adam into eating the fruit also. In the poem, the Garden of Eden “sank to grief”.
Adam and Eve had a perfect Garden of Eden, until Eve ate the apple and contaminated the garden. In being tricked by the snake, Eve betrayed God’s word. Mankind has often betrayed others because of the darkness in their heart. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles uses Phineas as a sacrificial lamb to portray Gene’s savage side and demonstrate that peace can never be achieved at a worldwide level until man accepts the darkness in his own heart.
“The Monkey Garden” is a short story by Sandra Cisneros about a young girl named Esperanza who lives near a fantastic garden. The diction and personification in the story affects how Esperanza breaks free from her childhood and loses her innocence. Esperanza enjoys playing in the garden, but her friend Sally tells her she is too old to play where the children play. Esperanza realizes that “the garden that had been such a good place to play didn’t seem mine either” (Cisneros 2) after her friend Sally plays an unorthodox kissing game with boys at the garden. As a result, Esperanza loses her innocence when they laugh at her for trying to “save” Sally.
It was that simple” (Cisneros 96). In comparison, the story of The Garden of Eden in Genesis consists
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). John Steinbeck’s work, East of Eden, is the one he considered to be his greatest, with all novels before leading up to it. Indeed, it grandly recounts the stories of the human race as told by the Bible, including Adam and Eve, but most prominently that of Cain and Abel. It touches upon both Steinbeck’s own family and a fictional family in a depiction of “man 's capacity for both good and evil” (Fontenrose). Joseph Fontenrose, however, criticizes Steinbeck’s message as contradictory and convoluted, with no clear relationship between good and evil.
Adam and Eve are ‘born’ in the Garden of Eden, an ethereal place where they want for nothing, or at least should want for nothing. This of