46 pages • 1 hour read
Ernest HemingwayThe Garden of Eden
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Challenging Conventions
A key theme in The Garden of Eden is the way in which characters challenge or adhere to social conventions. The primary example of this is Catherine, who craves a sense of identity or uniqueness and believes that defying social expectations will grant it to her. Catherine is a rich young woman who has recently lost both her parents; she has no job, interests, or hobbies beyond living well and being married to David. She had nothing substantive by which to define herself until David appeared in her life. She does not want to be just a wife, however, as she perceives the limitations this role places upon her. She seeks to create a new identity by challenging such conventions. This constant desire to challenge preconceived ideas becomes her identity, and defiance of expectation becomes her only real character trait.
Catherine’s unconventional behavior accelerates throughout the novel. At first, she wears trousers and cuts her hair short, adopting masculine aesthetics which force people to pay attention to her. People stop in the street and stare at her short, boy-like haircut while the local priest and other members of the community disapprove of her predilection for traditionally male garments. These external, aesthetic choices soon give way to a more internal desire to challenge preconceptions, and even in private she maintains this desire to challenge. Catherine tells David that she is now a boy and asks him to become a girl while they lay in bed together. Even their moments of intimacy become a way to challenge the roles she played in the past. By becoming the male figure in the relationship, Catherine tries to adopt her husband’s identity to fill the hollowness within her. However, the more that people accept her hair, clothes, and behavior, the more she is driven to find new ways to challenge convention. Gradually, she is overwhelmed by her approach to life because she has turned against everything. Catherine’s life breaks down when she can no longer challenge conventions because people refuse to tolerate her any longer.
In contrast, David is a traditionalist. He compartmentalizes his life and prefers to adhere to conventions. He views Catherine’s behavior as a mental health issue and wonders whether he should send her to a doctor. By the end of the novel, Catherine finds that her constant opposition to norms is unsustainable. She cannot rest and must always find new ways to challenge what she sees. She removes herself from the situation and leaves David with Marita, a woman who shares his respect for norms. Catherine’s sometimes reckless search for an identity destroys her marriage and drives her husband to another woman. Catherine suffers because she can do nothing but challenge convention, while David’s growth is limited because he would rather work in peace than try to understand his wife at a deeper level.
Writing as an Escape
The Garden of Eden portrays the escapist qualities of writing. David is a writer by trade and his profession gives him an escape from social pressures. He feels the need to perform the role of a stoic husband and part of this performance is the need to repress his emotions. Regardless of what Catherine says or does to him, David bottles up his frustrations and leaves his annoyance unsaid. For David, writing is an outlet for the emotions that he does not express. The narrative of the novel begins to give way slowly to one of his short stories at the moment when he is becoming more frustrated. He travels into his past to explore the roots of his stoicism, finding an explanation in his father’s behavior. David uses writing to interrogate emotions in a controlled, distant manner. He controls the words on the page, and he can cross out, edit, and remove parts he does not like. The neatness of fiction contrasts with the messiness of his life, revealing why David treats writing as an escape from his marriage.
In addition to an emotional escape, writing provides David with a potential financial escape. He spends most of the novel financially dependent on Catherine. She pays for their hotel and their car; money is an unspoken subject in the marriage, but Catherine occasionally reminds David that he relies on her for the luxurious lifestyle they lead. When David learns about the success of his novel, however, he is cautiously optimistic. The money grants him more independence and removes one of the ways Catherine has power over him. To David, writing provides a financial escape from his wife’s control. Catherine recognizes this sentiment as well; she reacts angrily to his reviews because they hint at future success. Catherine’s mockery of his work reflects her anger at the idea that he might be financially independent.
Catherine burns David’s writing in part to remind him of his financial dependence on her, but she marks sure to leave the narrative of their relationship untouched. David creates this narrative as a distinctly private celebration of their marriage. Unlike his short stories or his novels, the narrative is not intended for a wider audience. It is not a commercial exercise, which means that Catherine has no qualms about leaving it unburned. This piece of writing escapes her punishment not only because David will not profit from it but because Catherine views it as a form of escapism. In the narrative, David (under Catherine’s instruction and guidance) can create a version of Catherine that finally pleases her. The writing process is the creation of identity, providing Catherine with a sense of satisfaction that she has never achieved in her other pursuits. She wants David to write her as she sees herself, not as she is. For Catherine, the only piece of writing that is permitted to survive is the writing that gives her an escape.
Wealth and Power
David is a successful writer. As proven by his publisher’s letters, he stands to make a good amount of money from his latest novel. The fact that David needs to calculate exactly how much, however, suggests that money is still a concern for him. He cannot spend lavishly. Catherine, conversely, has no such limitations. For all David’s success, he can never expect to be as wealthy as Catherine, who has inherited a fortune from her parents. Catherine never stops to calculate money. She simply spends and assumes that she has more than enough to cover the cost. The disparity of wealth in the relationship reflects an imbalance of power. If David wants to continue to write and continue to live his lavish lifestyle, he must depend on Catherine. In an emotional and a practical sense, he is indebted to her. This is an imbalance that Catherine appreciates because, in a patriarchal society, she finally has some sense of control or agency in a role that is traditionally given to the man. She is the source of wealth, and she recognizes that this gives her power over David. Their different reactions to David’s reviews validate this idea. Catherine resents the positive reviews because, to her, they symbolize a future in which David may be financially independent. David reacts with restrained optimism as they have the same symbolic value for him. David agrees to quietly ignore the imbalance of wealth and the potential disruption in their relationship because he wants to live without the drama that might come from an honest conversation about their finances.
The time that the couple spends on their honeymoon reiterates the extent to which they enjoy their wealth. Catherine pleads with David that they extend their vacation, and they travel back and forth across the French-Spanish border as they explore Europe with no attention paid to the cost. The privilege that Catherine’s wealth provides is that they never need to think about the cost. Unlike the people in cafes, hotels, or towns that they meet, and from whom they purchase services and goods, David and Catherine exist in an insulated bubble that separates them from the rest of society. Their wealth gives them the power not to care about the season, their obligations, or their bank balance. The insularity of this wealth and power facilities the chaos of their relationship. With little else to think about, their attentions turn inward. Catherine begins to obsess over her identity, and David disappears into his past. The wealth of the couple allows them to indulge their petty grievances, fueling the narrative and playing a key role in the collapse of their marriage.
The more they vanish into their insular world, the more they can use their wealth to hurt each other. Catherine uses her money to insult David. She burns his stories and then offers to pay him double the value, patronizing him with an insulting suggestion that the only reason he writes is to pay the bills. The value of the stories was not financial but therapeutic for someone who is struggling to express himself. In truth, the stories represent wealth that transcends money, which is exactly why they become a target for Catherine: the stories have a power that is beyond her control. David liked the stories because they allowed him to connect to his past and explain why he represses his emotions. By burning the stories, Catherine denies him this opportunity. By offering to pay for the stories, Catherine reduces David’s past and his growth to the same kinds of goods and services that she purchases from people outside their bubble. The burning of the stories and the offer of payment are ways to remind David of the source of their wealth and power, asserting herself and placing him outside the circle. She patronizes him in a literal way, throwing money at him because it means nothing to her and everything to him. When David can find physical and romantic value elsewhere in the world, Catherine is left with only wealth to assert her power.
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By Ernest Hemingway
