This Other Eden

Content Warning: This guide includes depictions of racism, discrimination, forced eviction, eugenics, nonconsensual relationships, and rape.

Paul Harding uses similes throughout This Other Eden to enrich the world and characters of the novel. A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things to create a new image or understanding for the reader. In the novel, similes are often used when describing characters and their actions or emotions. When Bridget sees the painting Ethan made of her, she feels intense emotions, “like her heart was a bronze gong insider her ribs and its sounding somehow unstrung and remade her” (138). The use of a simile in this moment, comparing her heart with a bronze gong, amplifies the intensity of the emotions she is feeling. Instead of a heartbeat, her heart is ringing with the loud sound accompanied by a hammer striking a gong. When used to describe actions, similes also lend additional meaning. When Zachary takes Eha to cut down a tree to build his house, a simile is used to describe his approach to the task: “Zachary clambered up like he was a bear scrambling for a beehive full of honey” (177).