Sea Garden, By Gwen Bristow

Sea Garden
“The path to paradise begins in Hell” (Dante Alighieri). In Gwen Bristow’s novel, Celia Garth, Celia fought throughout her whole young life to thrive and succeed in a cold, lonely world. Celia defeated her demons and eventually found her paradise in her home in Sea Garden with the people she loved. She felt safe and protected from the outside world and from the treacherous life she led. Her home created an ambiance of security and a new beginning for Celia. Celia’s glorious home sat at the forefront of perfection, similar to the perfect world that God had created: The Garden of Eden. However, the incontrovertible paradises of these perfect worlds were infiltrated by an evil that sought after self glory and personal gain, which allowed

the worlds to be overrun with sin and danger, exemplified by Roy Garth and the Red Coats.
Sea Garden, the new home of Celia Garth and her beloved Luke, stood tall and sturdy as the house was Celia’s paradise.

Sea Garden represented her freedom and new beginning from her treacherous life that she had left behind, but most importantly, the house stood as a biblical allusion which symbolized God’s great creation of Eden. Celia saw the “beautiful dwelling-house of Sea Garden” (Bristow 359) and immediately felt safe and at peace. Celia had seen the beautiful house as a perfect paradise for leaving the outside world and leading a fruitful and prosperous life away from dangers. Celia’s paradise was parallel to the creation of God’s Eden. God created Eden with the purpose of starting life in his image, and “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day” (New International Version, Genesis 1:31). Eden, created by God, was the perfect embodiment of quintessential, as the garden left no danger for Adam and Eve and shielded the dwellers from harmful knowledge that was detrimental to their lives of no sin. The “good” that God had seen in his creation was a perfect “good”, as God can create no wrong, only perfection. Celia had seen her home at Sea Garden in similar fashion as God had seen Eden, absolute perfection. Celia felt protected from dangers outside of her own world, similar to how Adam and Eve were protected by God’s grace from leading sinful lives. The life Celia led inside her humble abode at Sea Garden

was in direct correlation to the perfect beginning of Eden.
God’s Eden and Celia’s paradise did not go unblemished as both were infiltrated by absolute evils.

The evil they faced sought after their own triumphant paradise to rule and govern over to become renowned leaders. Celia fought her battle with Roy Garth, who attempted and succeeded to soil Celia’s paradise by making it his own. Roy yearned for Celia’s triumphant home and eventually “declared the property of his majesty’s loyal subject, Roy Garth” (Bristow 360). His need for Celia’s home was for personal gain and the glory of being able to call Sea Garden his own, taking from Celia all that she had to protect her from previous predicaments in her life. In comparison to Roy, God’s Eden was infiltrated by Lucifer, the devil. Lucifer slid into God’s great creation with the wicked intention of making Eden his own. Lucifer, “being more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (New International Version, Genesis 3:1) was able to blindly lead and deceive Eve; he made her tempt God’s grace by going against God’s will while simultaneously offering her the knowledge of good and evil. Similar to Roy Garth, Lucifer entered the perfect world with the mindset of making Eden his own. However, his shortcoming of not being able to takeover Eden was not a complete failure, as he was still able to exterminate God’s paradise by infecting Adam and Eve with the parasite of knowledge, which led to the inevitable damnation of the human race. His lust for being the sole owner of

the perfect kingdom allowed Lucifer to act in vain, similar to Roy, which caused pain and angst inside both Celia and the Lord.
Roy, like Lucifer, did not enter the hostile predicament between he and Celia without methods to ensure that he received what he was after. Roy came to the manor with his despicable intentions and brute force in the form of the Red Coats. The Red Coats quickly entered the plight between Celia and Roay, as Celia looked among the garden she “saw a man in a red coat” (Bristow 359). The soldiers that fought on behalf of Roy Garth quickly multiplied, “There were thirty or forty men in red coats, or maybe more-” (Bristow 359) as the quarrel with Celia and her family grew. In correspondence with the Red Coats, Lucifer entered Eden with the single plan of deceit. The deceit he created was the original sin of Adam and Eve, eating from the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life was the forbidden tree, however, the devil was able to convince Eve to eat the fruit by stating that she “shall not surely die” (New International Version, Genesis 3:4). The sin Eve committed was represented by the original Red Coat showing up at the residence of Sea Garden. The initiation of sin entering life, and the Red Coats entering Celia’s life, created the domino effect of recurring and multiplying offences of ungodly behaviour, equivalent to the multiplying amount of Red Coats. Thus, the sin the devil introduced to Adam and Eve led to the eternal damnation of the human race, unless their ungodly behaviour was repented upon. The eternal damnation was the taking of Celia’s home at Sea Garden, and the repentance was her reobtaining of her manor. Celia’s unfortunate quarrel between herself and the Red Coats was magnificently created with the allusion of sin.
Gwen Bristow immaculately illustrated an unblemished home for Celia Garth, as she escaped the dangers and the fears of the life that she once led. Sea Garden provided a protected and peaceful dwelling for all those who inhabited. However, perfection does not go unchallenged. Celia faced a multitude of hardships that were escalated because she was the owner of a coveted home that stood in the light of perfection in her own eyes. Bristow brilliantly incorporated the idea of Sea Garden in correspondence to The Garden of Eden, as she provided the astute representations of sin and Lucifer in the form of the Red Coats and Roy Garth.