Essay Questions

Elucidate the allusion that is foremost in “Summer Isles of Eden”.

“Summer Isles of Eden” exploits a religious allusion pulled from Genesis (“The Garden of Eden”: “These summer isles of Eden have this advantage over the scriptural Eden, that apparently it was not woman and her seed who were expelled, when once she set foot here, but the serpent and his seed: women now abound in the Summer Islands, and there is not a snake anywhere to be found. There are some tortoises and a great many frogs in their season, but no other reptiles.” Although the “Summer Isles” are not an unqualified duplication of the Biblical Eden, they encompass multifarious creatures which relate to the creatures alluded to in Genesis creation chronicles. The nonappearance of serpents in “Summer Isles of Eden” constructs a utopian Eden where one would not be apprehensive of serpent bites.

How does Howell discriminate between genders in “Worries of a Winter Walk”?

First, Howells renders males as principally sturdier: “From time to time this tiny creature put down her (the child) heavy burden to rest; it was, of course, only relatively heavy; a man would have made nothing of it.” Here, Howells, explicitly alludes that men are solider than the ‘beasts of the burden’ which the girl hinges on the transmit her coal. For Howell, being manlike is tantamount with being virile which embodies colossal forte. Additionally, the narration of the girl’s happenstance with a boy illustrates Howells’ creed on gender: “she met a boy some years older, who planted himself in her path and stood looking at her, with his hands in his pockets. I do not say he was a bad boy, but I could see in his furtive eye that she was a sore temptation to him. The chance to have fun with her by upsetting her bucket, and scattering her coke about till she cried with vexation, was one which might not often present itself, and I do not know what made him forego it, but I know that he did, and that he finally passed her, as I have seen a young dog pass a little cat, after having stopped it, and thoughtfully considered worrying it.” Howells is positive that the boy’s machismo would accord him a lead over the exposed lass. Accordingly, the girl would not impede the boy from his targets to dismay her. Moreover, the analogy vis-à-vis ‘the dog and cat’ surreptitiously implies tough dog embodies the tough boy whereas the cat personifies the incapable girl.