17 pages • 34 minutes read
Ted HughesTheology
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Consumption, Devourment, and Absorption
“Theology” explores eating and its significance. Adam consumes the apple. He ingests and swallows it. He also devours it since, by eating it, he destroys it—he eliminates it and makes it go away. At the same time, the apple, accounting for its religious symbolism, devours Adam; it destroys his resolve as he can’t fight the temptation to eat it. Finally, Adam absorbs the apple and it becomes a part of his person and body. The apple may also absorb Adam because it brings Adam into its clutches and makes Adam a part of it.
Eve might want to consume, devour, and absorb Adam for varied reasons. She may consume him because he’s been disobedient. Eating him is her way of punishing him. She breaks him down or devours him and, thus, shows her power over him. Conversely, she might absorb Adam so that the apple, via Adam, can become a part of her person. She, too, wants the forbidden knowledge that the apple represents.
When the serpent eats Eve, he may consume not just her but Adam and the apple. If the apple is in Adam, and Adam and the apple are in Eve, then all three are in the serpent. The serpent is triumphant since he contains God’s first humans and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. As the serpent devours Eve, Adam, and the fruit, he gets rid of them; he has “Paradise” (Line 10) all to himself. The serpent takes on a godlike quality. It’s as if he’s replaced God: Adam, Eve, and the tree of knowledge are a part of him. This turn of events might be why God is left “querulous calling” (Line 12). In the poem, the serpent’s power to consume, devour, and absorb seems to one-up God, which raises the question of whether the serpent has more influence than God.
Gender Relations and Power Dynamics
From one perspective, Hughes flips historical gender norms. It’s not the woman who’s naive and susceptible to seduction and temptation—it’s the man. Eve has the willpower to resist the apple while Adam lacks discipline and eats it first. The woman eats the man and has power over him, subverting established gender norms. Throughout history, men, not women, typically possessed the upper hand.
From an alternate point of view, Hughes maintains problematic gender norms. Adam eats the apple because he’s a man. He conforms to expectations that a man can’t or shouldn't control himself even if his behavior is fundamentally transgressive. In this reading, when Eve eats Adam, it’s not a powerful act but a stereotypical gesture. It plays into the trope of the woman as a “maneater” or a destructive presence in a man’s life. The woman Eve can’t control her man; out of helplessness, she eats him.
Perhaps “Theology” doesn’t overturn gender norms or reinforce them. Since “Adam ate the apple” (Line 5) and Eve ate Adam (Line 6), they are equals. They’re both eating, consuming, and absorbing; they’re on the same level. They’re also in the same place—inside the serpent.
The Multiple Layers of Good and Evil
“Theology” centers on religion—Christianity, in particular. It explores the themes of good and evil. By telling what actually took place in the Garden of Eden, the speaker puts themselves on the side of truth or facts. Some Christians might think the speaker is evil or corrupt for going against the Book of Genesis and providing a conflicting history. From the point of view of religious people who accept the story as it is told in Genesis, the speaker is evil and distorts the facts.
The theme of evil continues in Stanza 2: Neither Adam nor Eve can control themselves. When Adam eats the apple and Eve eats him, they yield to their base instincts and become reactionary and transgressive. Their wayward actions make it easy for the serpent—the evil Devil in disguise—to eat them. The “dark intestine” (Line 8) advances the theme of evil: In literature, darkness and evil often go together.
The speaker suggests evil triumphs over good, as the serpent “[s]leeps his meal off in Paradise” (Line 10). The resident of the Garden of Evil is the “[s]miling” (Line 11) and mischievous Devil and not God’s creatures. The serpent/Devil banishes God and God’s goodness from the picture. All that God does is complain from far away.
God, having created the world and everything in it, could presumably counteract the evil influence of the serpent. Hypothetically, God could do much more than whine; his choice not to do more suggests complicity or tolerance of the serpent and the evil he represents. God may also not become involved due to free will: Adam and Eve have made their choice, and it’s not up to God to interfere.
