In The Garden of Iden - Major Themes

Major Themes

This novel is primarily concerned with language, culture and personality. The darker side of "The Company" is only hinted at here, with Mendoza resigned to working for an entity that knows everything she is ever going to do, so anything that happens to her is more likely to be planned than accidental.

The novel provides much detail on Elizabethan language and culture. Technological anachronisms, such as the cyborgs' superhuman abilities, serve only as background to the main action. The Company operatives' most important assets are Joseph's silken tongue and quick wits. However, Joseph's guidance and actions also lead to Nicholas' downfall, and thus to Mendoza's crash. Having progressed from naïve child to boisterous cadet cyborg to dangerously besotted agent, she is twisted inside, though outwardly numb.

Joseph himself has been a loyal Company man for millennia, acting role after role and seeing all things as temporary. By the end of the novel it is clear that he regards Mendoza as a daughter, not just an operative playing that role for the Company.

A theme introduced here, and recurring in the later stories, is dislike of religious fervor in all its forms, from oppressive establishments to messianic cults and even, later, to fanatic pursuit of vegetarianism, abstinence, and animals' rights.