It Was Like That
... Howe captures a moment in time like no one else can. She expresses her feelings of what she thought Eve might have felt, and accurately depicts that scene. “Very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin.” This line is important because it shows a connection between this scene and the scene of Eve. When driving on bad ice, if you spin, it is a possibility that you will die, and after eating the fruit, Eve knows that she will have to die now. It is the connection between sin and death. The tone of the poem is of a sadness felt by the character being portrayed. This sadness is not that of grief anymore, but that of understanding and guilt. It was, and had to be, grief at one time, but that grief has passed. “It was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.” Eve is going to feel this guilt, this “feeling” she gets from the moment before she ate the fruit until she dies. This dialogue is her going back to remember this moment, but instead of having contempt for it, she understands that she can not change the past, as much as she, as all of us sometimes wish, that she could. The form in which the poem is written establishes the tone. The poem has only one period, which appears at the end of the poem. The moment before Eve ate the fruit must have felt like an eternity. The moment before is sign...