Genesis, Milton, Kipling

Salvador Dali, painter and thinker, was fascinated by the idea of paradise lost.  The proverbial “paradise” that mankind “lost” is of course the Garden of Eden—“A Heaven on Earth, for blissful Paradise of God the Garden was” (33).  Dali applied this paradise to an unborn human, in a woman’s womb.  I began to think about this because of the many mentions of the womb: “Earth’s inmost womb” (37) and the idea of the woman’s womb as literally and figuratively life-giving.  He believed that at birth, we lose the paradise and comfort of the womb.  Oddly, or perhaps not, I had never thought about paradise in this sense.  He believed that at birth, we are introduced to suffering and to struggle—the struggle to survive as an entity physically separated from paradise.  Perhaps this is akin to the dilemmas introduced by gaining the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and in Dali’s case, the theoretical inevitability of birth and maturation.  I thought of this largely because thinking of the Adam and Eve means pondering an abstract idea of paradise.  What is paradise now to us? Is it dominion, power, rights?

Paradise lost---a sketch from dali
http://rogallery.com/_RG-Images/Dali-Paradise_Lost.jpg

I think about the ways that the Bible has been interpreted and how this affects our perception of paradise, power, and what we feel entitled to.  The grand finale of the Creation story, according to Genesis and Milton’s Paradise Lost, is the creation of man.  Perhaps a cursory reading of God’s implorations—for Man to “be fruitful, multiplie, and fill the Earth, Subdue it, and throughout Dominion hold over Fish of the Sea, and Fowle of the Aire, and every living thing that moves on the Earth”? (32)—serves to justify humanity’s conduct on earth.  By conduct, I mean, ruthless dominion, of course.  But what strikes me as odd is how in several descriptions of non-human creatures in Paradise Lost, they are personified to embody certain human characteristics.  For example, “the swan with Arched neck between her white wings mantling proudly” (30).  Pride—isn’t that something we like to think “a creature who not prone and Brute as other Creatures...” would have.  In other words, when I think of a brute, savage, uncivilized or otherwise sub-human being, I think of something without the capacity for pride or “reason” or  “self-knowing.”  So my question is, where do you draw the line?  If there is repeated mention of all beings as "each Soul living" (29), then which Souls are worthy of power and which not?

Then I think of the human inclination to feel a sense of entitlement.  In The Jungle Book, this question becomes relevant when Shere Khan kills “for choice—not for food” (54); moreover, he kills a man.  Mowgli, like myself, was intrigued and curious to know what this unspoken right of his was.  Shere Khan, like human beings, felt a sense of power and dominion over many other creatures, including man.  (Let us put aside, for a moment, the origins of this “right” for the purpose of comparing the human right to kill with Shere Khan’s right to kill.)  So as to clear up all confusion as to why Shere Khan killed a man, he says “It was my right and my Night” (54).  In a few words, he felt entitled, hence the “my right” and the power to do so, hence “my Night.”  Similarly, when we humans murder animals for whatever reasons (vivisections, meat for food, fur for clothes, or their living bodies as cosmetic experiments), we do so because we have the power to and because we feel entitled. 


In the same way that humans feel entitled to do as they please with other sentient beings--exercising dominion over everything--for a time, so did the carriers of the y chromosome.  In Genesis, God tells Abraham: "As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name" (24).  While refusing to call someone by their name, in this case "Sarai," is not a crime, it is as revealing as is the type of powerlessness God supposedly bestowed upon women: "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" (16).  Perhaps in the same way that we have reconstructed this relationship and idea of male dominance as a god-given right, we can also dream of a day that we view other species in the same light.  This harkens back the to feminism and carnism readings of last semester....And for that matter, I can't help but think of all the ways in which the Creation story is invoked in the justification of patriarchy, institutionalized dominion by men over women, compulsory heterosexuality, and human control over the earth.  Food for thought.

With all due respect, THINK AGAIN.  Just because God supposedly told eve that "thy desire should be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"...I don't think so.  And you'd be crazy to say that the right to do so is acceptable today.
http://www.opinionpoll.in/files/images/pollimages/200906203/Male%20Domination.jpg