eden rock

• title - “Eden Rock”

  • garden of eden - parents in heaven?
  • “rock” - solid foundation which shows unbreakable bond / memory
  • deliberately vague & undefined
• “they are waiting for me somewhere beyond eden rock:”
• “My father, twenty-five, in the same suit”

  • thinks of father in his youth - idolisation of parents in their prime
• “Of genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack”
• “Still two years old and trembling at his feet”
• “My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress”

  • idolisation of mother in her prime
• “Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat”
• “Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.”
• “Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light”

  • “takes on the light” gives an angelic image of mother - idolisation
• “She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight”
• “From an old H.P sauce bottle, a screw”
• “Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out”
• “The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.”
• “the milk straight” and “slows slowly sets out”

  • half rhyme - shows incomplete nature of relationship
• “The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.”

  • family triangle - “three suns”
  • symbolic of purity & holy trinity concept
• “My mother shades her eyes and looks my way”
• “Over the drifted stream. My father spins“

  • “drifted stream” - implies hazy memory and shows separation & distance
• “A stone along the water. Leisurely,”

  • “Leisurely” slows down pace of poem’s rhythm
  • no implied time pressure for him to join them in afterlife
• “They beckon to me from the other bank.”

  • “They” - 3rd person plural - distance
  • temptation; persuasion; positive embrace for reuniting family
• “I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!“
• “Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’”

  • “crossing” - journey, travel, movement, questioning process of death
• “I had not thought it would be like this.”

  • separation of final line from rest of poem symbolises separation experienced by speaker from parents - could also symbolise gap between life and death
• themes: family relationships (strong bonds & distance), death, memory, nature
• similarities between eden rock & before you were mine:

  • fond memories of parents
  • love transcends death of loved one
  • semi-autobiographical
  • connotations of after-life
• differences between eden rock & before you were mine:

  • ER uses memory in present tense from childhood perspective
  • “they” reference in ER implies distance
  • BYWM switches between different frames of memory + goes beyond speaker’s memories
  • ”you” and “yours” in BYWM shows more intimacy