Logic and Reasoning
In the poem, Eve recounts the way Adam felt driven to figure out the internal mechanism of things: to break them down until he understood the way they worked. The logic that "what cannot be demonstrated / doesn't exist" became Adam's worldview, causing him to renounce God since God could not be demonstrated. This new insistence on tangible evidence is representative of the period of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. In the poem, Adam's relationship to truth is determined by this logic.
Eve also offers an alternative logic: faults of character "have their own logic / and it always works out." She applies Adam's logic to this thought, saying that character faults can be demonstrated, and thus they exist. At the end of the poem, Eve applies both her and Adam's logic to say that Adam "has turned himself into God, / who is faultless, and doesn’t exist." Eve thus uses logic and reasoning to undermine her husband.
Female Empowerment
In this poem, Eve addresses modern women, suggesting that they take up leadership roles rather than fall back into default female submissiveness. That Wright gives Eve a voice at all means that the poem speaks back to the original Biblical narrative. Eve speaks in a familiar, informal voice, which characterizes her as someone modern readers can relate to. Though Eve herself claims to be a passive and submissive woman, she undermines Adam in this poem by applying his own logic against him. After telling the story of her family's life since the Fall, Eve tells her daughters that it's time they took over "for the sake of the children." This demonstrates a feminist perspective that aligns with Wright's work as an activist.
Truth and Pride
A change in the human relationship to truth is presented in this poem, reflecting the discourse of the Age of Reason. Eve describes how Adam applied his belief in mechanism towards determining truth rather than accepting truth as something handed down by God. In order for something to exist, it had to be demonstrated. However, this logic came about as a result of Adam's obsession with his own pride, which had been hurt by "the insult." This insult refers to Adam and Eve's banishment from Eden, which, in the poem, Adam sees as "the trick They had played on us." But Eve did not share this reaction. She adapted herself to their punishment and new way of life. Adam cannot let go of the past, and his pride becomes his downfall when Eve applies his own logic to say that he doesn't exist. Thus truth is an important value to both Adam and Eve in the poem, but Adam's refusal to perceive his own flaws blinds him to the truth.
