Jerram Barr's Echoes Of Eden Throughout Literature

Echoes Of Eden Throughout Literature In 2013, Jerram Barrs published a book titled Echoes of Eden, in which he introduces an idea that "all great art will echo these three elements of Eden: (1) Eden in its original glory, (2) Eden that is lost to us, and (3) the promise that Eden will be restored” (Barrs 24). With further observations of various works, readers learn that this biblical pattern of Eden, Eden lost (the Fall), and Eden regained (redemption) can be seen many times throughout literature. Barr’s definition of an “Echo of Eden” is: an “awareness that the world we live in is broken and fallen”. There is a recall of the promise and hope of the restoration of what is good” (Barrs 74). Works of literature such as Hamlet by William Shakespeare,

Before the story takes place, Hamlet’s Eden is his life at college, along with the knowledge that his father is ruling at home safely, with his mother alongside him. This happiness is destroyed though, and Eden is lost when his father dies and his mother is remarried to his uncle. Adding to the fall, his father—in the form of a ghost—tells Hamlet his uncle murdered him. After a long search for redemption, in which Hamlet proves his father’s accusation and mistakenly kills one of Claudius’s counselors, justice is finally restored and the wrongs are revenged. Though most of the characters tragically die at the end, there is still redemption in the sense that justice does reign in the end. Truly, this play does have a dark theme to it, but there are also glimmers of hope and the recognition that God has a plan for us; readers can see this when Hamlet says, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will” (Shakespeare 259). Furthermore, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is a unique representation of these echoes. The narrator’s Eden is before Death

The narrator then goes through a journey of reflecting on life—a process, it seems, of coming to accept Death—before finally coming to her grave at peace. Eden is restored at the end, though not in the usual redemption of other literary works. James Joyce’s short story, Eveline, has a very unusual variation of echoes of Eden. Eveline’s Eden seems to be even before the story starts, when her mother and brother Ernest are still alive. But Eden is lost now that they are gone, and Eveline’s path to redemption has been a slow and confused one. She plans to run away with her lover, Frank, and escape her life of abuse and hardship. But she seems ill at ease with her decision; she wants to escape, but, “In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about. Of course she had to work hard...” (Joyce 2). Ultimately, she lets her fear of the unknown overpower her longing for freedom. The story ends in an unsettled way, making the reader question whether or not Eveline will ever see redemption, and how long her search will