Task 5 — Setting?

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Greetings, my good people out there in this big world! Today, we will look into “This Other Eden’s” setting and how it affects the book’s story, as well as what I feel about the book so far. Without further ado, let’s hop into it!

Starting with the integral and more critical setting, it is certain that the book’s story revolves around Apple Island. On this island, the poor, but rather important Honey — family lives with their small community, ravelled in poverty. The island is located off the coast of Maine,- up north on the east coast of the US, and is small, but still depicted as a stunning, naturally beautiful, rugged place where trees hang low and lush grass grow on the top of cliffs. Paul Harding uses delicate, soft-spoken and positive words to describe the island as a whole, trying to mask or rather hide the poor and dysfunctional reality.

As the core narrative is set in the time period from 1911 to 1912, we also get to see the main conflict of the book which is the islander’s constant fight with eugenic, racial movements, trying to take over the island and evict the innocent residents. We also see lots of weird and extraterrestrial upbringings from the islanders, as they live in constant isolation, trying to form their own form of living and enjoying life. Because of both the poverty, and lack of basic understanding of norms and knowledge, the authorities form a picture of the islanders as inferior and morally bankrupt. All this creates an almost unreal underlying atmosphere, making it feel like we are in a simulation, even though we are just reading the book normally.

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The general founding, and background setting is the eugenic movement’s view on “racial cleansing” against the islander’s mixed population. As the island’s founder was a former slave, escaping societal judgment with his Irish wife, we can clearly see why the islanders was not meant to be exposed by the still negative and racial mainland residents, showing why the island was so isolated in the first place. Paul Harding has also chosen to base of the real events that occurred on the real Malaga Island in 1911. Malaga Island was also inhabited by mixed residents, most of them escaped slaves or normal, innocent black men and women. In real life, the state’s governor looked down upon the residents as “feeble-minded” and “inferior”, and, as said, evicted all of the residents, most of whom ended in institutions. Even the graves were dug up and the remains of the islander’s ancestors was moved to be buried at “Maine School for the Feeble-minded” in New Gloucester.

Even though racism and “racial cleansing” unfortunately was viewed on as normal in the time of the story, the actual reason the islander’s was evicted was because of the authorities wish for tourism and building of properties. This creates a deeper meaning to as if it really was worth it to remove all of the residents, and what had happened if all of this never happened.

That was all for today, folks! I hope you all enjoyed this quick, but deep look into “This Other Eden’s” story and setting, and I hope to see you in the next one!

Thanks for reading with me!,- Ola Bjæring-Houmb