In Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic novel The Year of the Flood, Ren, a member of the cult God's Gardeners, begins to gradually fall for a man named Jimmy; once she realizes this, and understands the love of her friend Lucerne for a man named Zeb, she has the following revelation:
"I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature you didn’t even know would be helped by it. The example he used was of someone being killed by a virus and then eaten by vultures. I hadn’t liked that comparison, but the general idea was true; because here was Lucerne, sending that text message because she loved Zeb, but as a side effect saving Amanda, which hadn’t been her original intention. So Adam One was right."
This passage in particular is fascinating - and troubling - due to its insights regarding the idyllic and idealized cult of God's Gardeners, led by the enigmatic and charismatic Adam One. In this way we see both the comforting and frightening aspects of God's Gardeners, which are evident in the work. Here we see the precarious nature of Ren's emotional state, who is wracked by jealousy and uncertainty regarding her own romantic relationships; comparing her relationship with Jimmy to Lucerne's relationship with Zeb, she finds herself wanting, and through the words of the cult attempts to force herself into thinking everything is okay.
First, Ren states that she "could see" the value in the principle of doing "extreme things for the person you loved." Not that she does, but that she could; this is an implicit admission that she does not fully understand or comprehend the concept, but seems to accept its existence and its validity, however begrudgingly. The use of the word 'extreme' to describe the extent to which people do things for the people they love is indicative of a certain doubt of the reasonableness of the claim; if she believed that these things were justified in the name of love, she would not use the word 'extreme.' This phrasing indicates that doing for someone else you love is a foreign concept to her.
Ren attempts to reconcile her own beliefs and cynicism with the idealism of the Gardeners, particularly the platitudes Adam One gives her. This anxiety mostly comes from her uncertainty regarding love; she seems to be afraid of rejection - this is why she chooses to remember the anecdote Adam One tells her about it being "a good thing anyway" when love is not "always returned the way you wanted"; she seems to be attempting to make herself feel better by imagining that "a creature[she] didn't even know would be helped" by her love. This way, the attempts at emotional reaching out that she conducts are at least helped by someone, even if they are not returned to the extent that she might want.
When Adam One compares this analogy to someone "being killed by a virus and then eaten by vultures," the violent comparison is at first rejected by Ren ("I hadn't liked that comparison"), but then begrudgingly accepted ("but the general idea was true") because she is finally honest with herself. The troublesome aspect of the analogy - that of a virus-ridden body still being useful as food for vultures - is that the individual may not likely feel good about merely being vulture food. Nothing good or personally beneficial comes from this transaction, and so Ren extends the truth of that metaphor to her life; she does not understand what Lucerne and Zeb's relationship is, despite having a similarly murky one with Jimmy. The love triangle between Amanda, Zeb and Lucerne is still confusing to her, though she does not like it - she recognizes that Lucerne is effectively giving up her body to the virus (Zeb), but saving the life of the vulture (Amanda).
This passage in particular denotes the outsider nature of Ren to the Gardeners, as she does not fully commit to the principles and ideals that Adam One instills, though she recognizes them. The swinging, polyamorous lifestyle seemingly encouraged by the Gardeners is what starts to tear Ren apart; she sees Jimmy constantly with other women and starts to resent them - her thoughts toward Lucerne's actions is part of that. Ren has trouble grasping how Lucerne could be so selfless for the sake of the woman who keeps Zeb away from her - Amanda. This throws a bit of a wrench in the sociological ideals of the Gardeners; in essence, free love starts to tear away at the jealous heart, and leaves Ren in particular baffled as to how to relate to those who commit to that way of life.
The Year of the Flood, 231-431
Near the end of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, one of the most important and vital passages for understanding the motivations behind God's Gardeners and its surrounding movement is shown: the hymn 'The Earth Forgives,' in which they elucidate man's relationship with nature. One of the most important passages of that hymn illustrates this relationship most acutely:
“All Creatures know that some must die
That all the rest may take and eat;
Sooner or later, all transform
Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat.
But Man alone seeks Vengefulness,
And writes his abstract Laws on stone;
For this false Justice he has made,
He tortures limb and crushes bone.
Is this the image of a god?
My tooth for yours, your eye for mine?
Oh, if Revenge did move the stars
Instead of Love, they would not shine” (Atwood 333).
In this passage, the ultimate goal of the Gardeners takes shape; they want complete equality of man with nature, even to the point of silencing and muting man's own desire to control his environment. While this is a laudable goal, it may seem somewhat hypocritical, particularly for a group that protests outside fast food restaurants because they do not believe in eating other creatures with a face. The first couplet itself, "All Creatures know that some must die / That all the rest may take and eat", implies that, as creatures of nature, mankind should also be able to eat their fellow animals as well. It seems a curious and awkward distinction to make, as this choice to do otherwise implies that these individuals do place themselves on a different level than the rest of nature. It seems to be somewhat hypocritical; while the idealism of the message is there (preventing cruelty to animals, etc.) it is mixed up in confusing politics. The inevitability of death, and the eschewing of mankind having any special destiny or domain over the world, is illustrated in the acknowledgment of man's mortality: "Sooner or later, all transform / Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat." Adam One's hymn explicitly likens creatures, man or animal, with food - the equating of specific parts of the body to specific foodstuffs further solidifies the metaphor, which seems at odds with the Gardeners' message.
In the second segment of the selected passage, the message becomes somewhat clearer; the goal of the Gardeners is not necessarily to fix the imbalance between man and nature, but to vilify a particular type of capitalistic society (that of the pleeblands and the CorpSEcorps). "But Man alone seeks Vengefulness; and writes his abstract Laws on stone," sings Adam One and the rest of the Gardeners - this seems to refer to the apparent illegitimacy of modernized society as compared to the Gardener's lifestyle, noting that civilized laws are "abstract" and based on "Vengefulness." Here, he equates what may be attempts to permit society to control itself as petty measures of revenge; the Gardener philosophy seems to let go of the concept of rules altogether.
The Gardeners' particular brand of utopia is nearly purely ecological; to the exclusion of all else, they believe that man should seemingly take part in the laws of nature, instead of making up their own. In essence, the Gardeners seek to 'break' the human animal from its natural habits and make him a bit more in tune with nature. The goal is sustainability through active adaptation of behavior to suit the needs of nature, effectively subordinating man to the environment (Bergthaller, 2010). The whole exercise seems to be a gesture of frustration with human nature, as Adam One and the others become disenchanted with modern society and seek to forge ahead in a more harmonious relationship with nature itself.
The problem with the world, according to the Gardeners, is purely and exclusively due to Man; the focus on vengeance as a basis for man's laws can, therefore, also be used to inform Adam One's laws for God's Gardeners. As mentioned previously, with the desire to chastise technological society for eating meat while acknowledging that animals (which they believe mankind are akin to) do the same, one could say that the Gardeners are attempting to enact their own "Vengefulness" on modern society for other perceived slights (technology-based pollution, violence and negative emotion). The establishment of the utopia of the Gardeners could be argued to be a retaliatory and passive-aggressive gesture to rebel against the technological nature of the world around them.
The hymn presented at the end of the book is the Gardeners' attitude toward man in a nutshell; modern man is, by nature, prone to vengeance and biologically incapable of behaving appropriately. Therefore, by placing man in kind with nature, the Gardeners seek to correct this imbalance and their own behavior, breaking them in to become the kinds of animals they wish to be - one with nature, though curiously vegetarian in spite of their acceptance of animals doing otherwise. This inserts a slight hypocrisy that reveals their true intentions: to care for the planet through modified behavior and to smugly spite the technological society they actively rebel against.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood.Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009. Print.
Bergthaller, Hannes. "Housebreaking the Human Animal: Humanism and the Problem of
Sustainability in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood."
Ecocriticism and English Studies vol. 91, no. 7, pp. 728-743, 2010. Print.
