“I was afraid, because I was naked”: Ethical literary criticism, the fall of Adam and Eve and moral teaching

Abstract

This article explores the moral teachings in the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4–3:24) from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. According to the theory of three stages in human civilization—natural, ethical and scientific selection, the fall of Adam and Eve represents the historical process of human civilization going from natural selection to ethical selection. It is ethical selection that enables Adam and Eve to have ethical consciousness and distinguish themselves from animals, which provides ideas for the birth and growth of humans and highlights the function of “moral teaching and learning” in children's education. Besides, the so-called original sin is the animal factor remained in human beings after natural selection, which can bring about different ethical predicaments of “to be or not to be” and lead to making wrong ethical choices. The fall of Adam and Eve indicates that human beings are born with Sphinx factor—human factor and animal factor and integrate into the secular life and religious activity with divine factor. Once the animal factor of an individual is out of control, breaking the ethical taboo and violating the moral order or religious rule without exerting the power of human factor or divine factor, there will inevitably be punishments and tragedies. The fall of Adam and Eve is such an ethical tragedy, which purifies primitive desires and evokes moral emotions through pity and fear to uphold the morality in society and the authority in religion.

1. Introduction

As a compilation of legends and myths about the history, custom, etiquette, and religion of primitive clan society, the Bible is often seen as a “literary work” that narrates the life stories and heroic deeds about our ancestors [e.g. Refs. [1], [2], [3], [4]]. From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, literature, in its origin, can be “a unique expression of ethics and morality within a certain historical period” [5] (p. 14). By using words or symbols, human beings can document their lives and express their aesthetic, ethical, and religious experience on the secular life, so as to provide moral instruction and religious education for the posterity. As Jaco Gericke notes, the discourse in the Bible contains assumptions about meta-ethical issues, such as “the meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, and so on” [6] (p. 210).

The fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4–3:24) is the first and possibly the most important part of Genesis in the Bible, saying that Adam and Eve disobey God's commands and eat the forbidden fruit from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”,1 then they are cast out of the garden of Eden, suffering from birth, aging, illness, and death as mortals. This story can be “a true mythos” [7] (p. 67), a parable of the human situation, which serves an “explanatory function” and records “a history in the sense that portrays a specific culture's ideas about issues that matter to them, many of which matter to us today because they are fundamentally human issues” [8] (p. 3). In other words, it includes the fundamental cognition and comprehension of primitive humans towards the Self and the world, full of “rational” contents and deep “religious” ideas [9] (p. 312). The “rational” contents are about life-searching questions for exploring the nature and meaning of human's existence , as well as how to make value judgments and ethical choices; while the “religious” ideas are about problem-solving doubts for understanding the way of the world, as well as the moral standards and religious rules in society, so as to give instructions to people's material and religious life, and to provide an ideal path for moral perfection and spiritual salvation.

The Fall is mostly argued as a tragedy or a blessing event for human beings among theologians and scholars. On the one hand, it is regarded as a total “tragedy” [e.g. Refs. [10], [11], [12]] for humans because it brings the sin into world, making human beings born with “original sin”, a state from which they cannot attain eternal life without God's grace. For example, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, the first lines read: Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit/Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast/Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,/With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat” [13] (p. 4). On the other hand, some take the Fall as God's plan of “redemption” [e.g. Refs. [14], [15], [16]]. It is “a blessed event” in the development of humankind [17] (p. 326), not only “a step downward”, but also “a step forward […] in the eternal march of human progress”.2 As Elder Orson F. Whitney (1855–1931) explains, “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God” [qtd. in Ref. 18, p. 55].

Whether the fall of Adam and Eve is viewed as a tragedy or a fortunate for human beings, the “moral” and “spiritual” aspects of the story cannot be ignored [19] (p. 155). Back to the story itself, the Fall indeed is a tale dealing with origins, an account meant to help human beings learn about “the nature and meaning of their existence” [7] (p. 66). It is the “first narrative rendition of human experience” in the Bible, particularly “revelatory” to look at how human beings think, feel, behave, and speak [20] (p. 1296). Ethically, the fall of Adam and Eve denotes “the moral norms and social values in the form of religious doctrines” [21] (p. 112), reflecting the development and evolution of moral relations and religious systems in society. Since literary works are produced “out of the demands for ethical exposition” [22] (p. 193), and “religious morality” is the guiding ideology of literary writing and criticism [21] (p. 113), this paper aims to revisit the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4–3:24) from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, with attention to its metaphor, cause and tragedy, so as to explore the moral teachings in the story.

2. Ethical literary criticism, Sphinx factor and divine factor

Ethical literary criticism is a critical theory and a research method “to read, analyze and interpret the ethical nature and function of literary works from the perspective of ethics” [21] (p. 13). The basic thought of ethical literary criticism is that literature, in essence, is the art of ethics and the special expressions of ethical ideas and moral experiences in a particular historical period: “out of the demand for ethical expressions, human beings invented written symbols to record their lives and their understanding of ethics as texts. Consequently, the first form of literature came into being” [22] (p. 190). Meanwhile, in the conceptual system of ethical literary criticism, “ethics” mainly refers to the ethical relationship and moral order that maintain human relations in the literary works, in which “the central concern of ethics is the accepted ethical relationship established between man and man, man and society, and man and nature” [22] (p. 190). The task of ethical literary criticism is to depict how ethical relationships and moral orders undergo changes, to examine their consequences, and to provide lessons emerging from human life for the progress of human civilization. Thus, using ethical literary criticism to reread the fall of Adam and Eve can help to explore its ethical expressions and moral teachings, as well as to provide ethical reflections on individual life in society.

In the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4–3:24), three are kinds of special beings, the Lord God, Adam and Eve, and the serpent, which correspond to the deity, human, and animal. The ethical relationship established by God is that humans must obey God's laws and rule the animals. However, there is a different narration that Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent and disobey God's commands, then are cast out of the Garden of Eden. Obviously, the breaking of ethical relationship established brings about the Fall, and the animal is one of the most important factors. According to the ethical literary criticism, the development of human civilization is composed of three stages of selection, namely “natural selection”, “ethical selection” and “scientific selection” [23] (p. 7). From Charles Darwin's biological selection, human's separation from the apes is characterized by a number of morphological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and this is “natural selection”, which can account for the physical forms of human beings. However, how human beings get the rationality and ethical consciousness is not mentioned by Darwin. That is a key issue in the “ethical selection” of human beings, and the fall of Adam and Eve provides a thinking for it. In the Fall, humans rule the animals but are tempted by the animal, which highlights that human beings may remain animal instinct in the evolutionary process from animals. In ethical literary criticism, the term “Sphinx factor” is often used to describe it.

Sphinx is a half-man and half-animal being in ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology (see Fig. 1), who has the head of a human being and the body of a lion,3 just as the creator God Nüwa in Chinese mythology (see Fig. 2) who has the head of a human being and the tail of a serpent. Those half-man and half-animal images can be “the artistic portrayals of human evolution and the original images of human beings after natural selection” [21] (p. 37). It indicates that besides the existence of invisible God, our ancestors in ancient times have realized that humans probably evolve from animals, and human nature is apt to be half-man and half-animal. The Sphinx in the Great Pyramids in Egypt is a portent of that. The riddle of the Sphinx4 in Sophocles' Oedipus the King can be “a story about the evolution of human consciousness”, which contains the early tradition of man's self-searching and the implications for us to understand our “humanity” [24] (p. 387). The reason why Oedipus can correctly answer Sphinx's question is because that he can “distinguish humans from animals” with wisdom and reason, which is “the result of ethical selection” [21] (p. 40). For those who have just completed biological evolution without ethical enlightenment, it is hard to tell whether Sphinx is a human being or an animal because Sphinx's human head shows she is a human being, while the lion body (or serpent tail) implies she is an animal.

Fig. 1.

Typical Egyptian Sphinx (with a human head and a lion body), © Egyptian Museum, Torino, Italy.

Fig. 2.

Chinese Nüwa and Fuxi (Nüwa at left, with a human head and a serpent tail) on the temple murals (rubbing depicted), around C1st AD, © Wu Liang shrines in Jiaxiang, Shandong, China.

The riddle of Sphinx reveals the essential distinction between humans and animals: Sphinx's image of a human head and an animal body suggests that the most important feature of a human lies in the “head”, which stands for the “rational will” of human beings emerging in the biological evolution; while Sphinx's animal features such as the body of a lion and the tail of a serpent demonstrate that “she retains some primitive desires associated with animals” [24] (p. 388). Oedipus' answer is to define what the “human” is, highlighting the determining factor of “human head”—rational will and ethical consciousness. Sphinx's riddle highlights the importance of “knowing yourself” [25] (p. 420), which also represents her ethical predicament of “to be or not to be”. Due to the lion body or serpent tail, Sphinx cannot confirm her identity as a human being. Oedipus's answer “a man” lets Sphinx realize and recognize her human identity, and Sphinx's suicide may be an example of her human nature rather than animal nature because animals rarely take their own lives. Virtually, Sphinx's story indicate that human beings are born with “Sphinx factor” that consists of “human factor” and “animal factor”:

“The human factor contributes to the formation of ethical consciousness, which is the determining component of human nature. […] Likewise, the animal factor, though incompatible with the human factor, is not identical with the nature of animals. It refers to human beings' instinct common to all animals with natural will and free will being its external manifestation. Animal instincts are essentially different from humans' in the sense that they bear no moral consequences, while human's natural will (motivated by libido) and free will (embodied as desires) are constrained and regulated by rationality and morality. […] In normal circumstances, the human factor is superior to the animal factor. A man could become a person with ethical consciousness, as the former can take control of the latter” [24] (pp. 388–389).

The animal factor (manifested as natural will—libido and free will—desire) of human beings must be controlled and restrained by human factor (manifested as rational will), so that human beings can have ethical consciousness, distinguish themselves from animals, and become rational and moral individuals. If the animal factor is out of control, a person will lose rational will and human nature, and make wrong ethical choices,5 or behave just like animals. In Genesis 2:4–3:24, Adam and Eve as humans can represent the human factor, while the “serpent”, the animal factor that brings the fall of Adam and Eve. Besides, there is a role of God, so except for human factor and animal factor, there is probably a kind of “divine factor”. An individual in society should be an existence of trinity of human factor, animal factor and divine factor. The human factor and animal factor are produced through the process of natural selection, while the divine factor is generated in the phase of ethical selection after natural selection. That is, human beings are born with Sphinx factor (human factor and animal factor), and the divine factor is gradually developed when they grow up and integrate into the community and society.

In the story of Garden of Eden, God, Adam and Eve, and the serpent respectively represents divine factor, human factor, and animal factor. It is like Sigmund Freud's superego, ego, and id. The divine factor is the superego, which originates from the parental (God's) punishment or approval and develops with the experience related to totemism. It acts beyond virtues of conscience and honesty to maintain the ethical taboo and remain the sense of divinity. The tension between the demand of conscience and the actual performance of ego (human factor) is experienced as “a sense of guilt” to “exercise the moral censorship” [27] (p. 33). Thus, the divine factor is the ethical component of personality and humility, providing religious precepts, moral standards, and social rules by which the “ego” (human factor) operates. The human factor represents the ego, which refers to “what may be called reason and common sense” and endeavors to “substitute the reality principle for the pleasure principle which reigns unrestrictedly in the id” [27] (p. 19). It mediates the desire and libido from id (animal factor) and deals with the pressure exerted by superego (divine factor). A newborn baby, like Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, is an existences of animal factor and human factor, but as the child continues to grow (from baby to child, then to teenager and adult), the human factor is further differentiated from animal factor, and the divine factor gradually develops and functions in life. Thus, divine factor is superior to human factor and animal factor. The divine factor, depending on cultures and religions driven by God's or a ruler's will, can be something beyond human's control, such as some supernatural power, the moral precepts in community, or the fear of God's punishments, including the death in current life, the purgatory after death, and the sin in afterlife. It can influence people's emotions, thoughts, judgments, and actions when they start to learn about the world. The divine factor can also be a determining factor that decides whether human beings would make wrong ethical choices or not. For some religious people, it may guide people not only to be moral, but also to be holy, and in the end to become the “ego ideal”.

By using ethical literary criticism into the discussion and analysis, it will provide a new way to look at the fall of Adam and Eve, especially the purpose and significance of its appearance and presentation in the Genesis of Bible, such as ethical reflections on human development and human civilization. Meanwhile, the reasons why Adam and Eve are lured by the serpent and exiled by God will be illustrated through the application of Sphinx factor (animal factor and human factor) and divine factor, which will give an outline of how human beings become who they are today (from innocence to maturity), as well as of how they can live their individual, social, and religious life in society.

3. The metaphor of the Fall: To be animal or to be human being?

As the first man and woman created by God, Adam and Eve are always thought to be the origins of humankind either in human evolution or human civilization [e.g. Refs. 28,29], but how human beings become who they are today, or how they get their “humanity” and live more truly with “spirituality” [30] (p. 37), is not well elucidated. According to ethical literary criticism, in the history of human civilization, the biggest problem for humankind to resolve is to “distinguish humans from animals and make a selection between the identity of animal and that of human being” [21] (p. 6). The “basis of religion” just lies in the essential difference between the man and the animal [31] (p. 1). Indeed, the fall of Adam and Eve is a metaphor for human's searching of human identity—“to be animal or to be human being”. It symbolizes how human beings become “humans” from a biological sense to an ethical one in society.

In Genesis 2:4–3:5, the first man and woman are only humans “in the biological sense” [25] (p. 421), and they are not fundamentally different from other animals. In the Garden of Eden, humans and animals are originally differentiated by God: Adam and Eve are assigned by God with responsibility as the owner of the garden and the ruler of the animals. However, the life of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 is like that of animals. Firstly, they live with the animals and “freely” eat the fruit of every tree (except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil); secondly, they do not “till” and “keep” the garden; thirdly, they are both “naked” and not “ashamed” (Gen 2:15–2:25). If we ignore the textual contexts of Genesis 2–3 that man is created by God from the dust of ground, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve indeed both live in a state of savagery before they eat the forbidden fruit or just as members of the animals despite their different physical forms. In this regard, the theory of biological evolution or nature selection developed by Darwin only accounts for the physical forms of human beings in a biological sense. He does not clearly answer the question: “other than in a biological sense what are the essential features that distinguish human beings from animals in nature?” [24] (p. 384). As Darwin himself also mentions, “I have hitherto only considered the advancement of man from semi-human condition to that of the modern savage” [32] (p. 113).

Thus, Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 are indeed in the stage of “natural selection” that Darwin proposed, which is the first decisive step for them to biologically become who they are and lays foundation for the evolution of human beings to a higher stage. Friedrich Engels tries to answer the essential distinction between humans and animals by pointing out that “labor” creates human existence. Engels thinks “labor” shapes the human hand, and the gradual perfecting of human hand leads to “the development of the brain and its attendant senses, of the increasing clarity of consciousness, power of abstraction and judgment” [33]. However, “labor” is only a kind of ability acquired by humans [25] (p. 419). It cannot be referred to the nature of human beings. Engels' view is in line with Darwin's biological evolution, which allows us to further understand how human beings evolve from the animals, but the question “why the human beings are who they are” is remained to be solved [21] (p. 34). In fact, the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 answers this question.

In Genesis 3:6–3:7, Eve, tempted by the serpent, takes off the forbidden fruit from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” and gives one to Adam to eat; and after they eat the fruit, “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves”. These descriptions indicate that the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, “an ambiguous and suggestive phrase encompassing moral, spiritual, and physical (sexual) knowledge” [34] (p. 8), awakens the ethical consciousness of Adam and Eve, so that humans are conscious of themselves and their singularity, as well as can distinguish themselves from other animals. Ludwig Feuerbach states that the essential difference between the man and the animal is “consciousness”: “in the feeling of self as an individual, in discrimination by the senses, in the perception and even judgment of outward things according to definite sensible signs” [31] (p. 1). So, the consciousness to distinguish the self from the animal is the first step for Adam and Eve to get their “humanity”. Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 are like new-born children. Their human consciousness and cognitive ability are still in the development stage. Although the commandments (or teachings) from God, such as “not to eat the forbidden fruit”, “to rule the animal”, and “to till the garden”, can promote their human consciousness, the environment they live in makes it difficult for them to confirm their human identity. Undoubtedly, there is a long way to get “humanity” after having human consciousness.

In Genesis 3:7, Adam and Eve's consciousness to wear fig leaves shows that the ability to tell the good and the evil (or the ethical consciousness to be ashamed or not) is the criterion for making a distinction between human beings and animals. In ethical literary criticism, there are three stages in the development of human civilization: natural selection, ethical selection and scientific selection. Among them, natural selection contributes to “explaining the physical forms of human beings”, while ethical selection helps to “understand the human nature”—to be an animal or to be a human being, to be good or evil, or to be moral or immoral [23] (p. 7). Human beings in the natural selection cannot completely distinguish them from animals, and only through ethical selection can humans truly become who they are. The fall of Adam and Eve just signifies the historical process of human civilization moving from natural selection to ethical selection. Eating the forbidden fruit and getting the knowledge of good and evil make Adam and Eve become humans “not only in a biological sense, but also in an ethical sense” [21] (p. 35). Adam and Eve are in a state of ethical confusion before they eat the forbidden fruit, because they are remained the same as other animals and do not have the ability and knowledge to understand some negative moral concepts, such as shame and evil. After they eat the fruit, Adam and Eve obtain ethical enlightenment of “good and evil”, and then have ethical consciousness to wear fig leaves and distinguish themselves from animals. What is more, they even hide “among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8) to escape from God's punishments. The act of eating forbidden fruit lets Adam and Eve enter the stage of ethical selection. It is ethical selection that endows human beings with rationality and ethical consciousness, and thus eventually “turns them into ethical beings” [24] (p. 386). Without ethical consciousness, Adam and Eve cannot have the ability to tell good from evil, and without that ability, Adam and Eve cannot become real humans.

The fall of Adam and Eve draws a route of human's birth and growth, which can provide instructions for children's education. There are two possibilities for a child to be from its birth: to be an animal or to be a human being. The birth of a child is the result of natural selection, while the growth of a child is a process of going through natural selection to ethical selection, that is, “a process of becoming a human being” [21] (p. 39). What a man looks like in the physical forms is determined by natural selection, but what kind of person to be is determined by ethical selection, in which the moral norms in society will help to shape the self. Ethical selection is to be done in accordance with “the certain social requirements and moral standards, or the needs of specific ethical environment and context” [23] (p. 14). It has been found that some children who join the lives of wolves or monkeys from birth without ethical enlightenment from parents will not have human consciousness, and except for their human forms, they are essentially the same as animals. For example, there are two girls Amala and Kamala raised up by a she-wolf in the jungle in India.6 Even though they are rescued and taught by J.A.L. Singh, they still behave the same as the wolf when they live in human society. The birth of a child only represents the completion of biological or natural selection, which implies that the child has obtained the physical forms of a human being, but it still cannot distinguish itself from animals, even does not become a rational or moral individual. Only when the child can distinguish itself from animals will he/she develop the ethical consciousness on how to be a human being. That means it needs to go through a long process of cultivation and education after completing the natural selection, especially on the development of children's ethical consciousness and moral values.

In this process, the ethical enlightenment (of the knowledge of good and evil) from the parents (or teachers) can be the determining factor. Instead of eating the forbidden fruit, a child is probably guided to read fairy tales. Through reading, the child's intelligence, as well as the learning and living abilities, can be strengthened, and then they will “confirm their identity and enter into ethical selection” [21] (p. 258). The fairy tales about animals, plants, and humans can help the child to form the concept of humans, find their differences from animals, know who they are, have human consciousness of good and evil, and finally learn about the moral norms or religious rules in society (to be an animal or not, to be a good man or not, or to be a moral person or not). As a result, the child can grow up and behave as a rational and moral man/woman. Otherwise, the child would be like the boy Mowgli the Frog in Joseph R. Kipling's The Jungle Book. Without listening to or reading any literary works, Mowgli remains naked and behaves the same as his wolf brothers during the nine years when he lives in the jungle. At that stage, Mowgli is in a state of ethical chaos. He does not have human consciousness. He has human forms, but because of the environment he lives in, he chooses to be a wolf. Later, for the sake of escaping from the entanglement of a tiger, Mowgli enters human society and is adopted and taught by a couple. To adapt to human life, “For three months, Mowgli was busy learning the ways and customs of men” [35] (p. 41). Then, Mowgli learns to cover his body with clothes, which denotes that he has obtained ethical consciousness. At the same time, he masters the moral norms of human society, confirms his identity as a human being, and finally he is recognized and accepted by others in the human society.

The situation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:4–3:24 is the same as Mowgli in The Jungle Book. Mowgli's identity changing from an animal in the jungle to a member of the human society, in turn, reflects the transition of Adam and Eve from a natural biological animal to a social moral individual. So, the fall of Adam and Eve is to solve the problem of getting “humanity” and being as humans. It is through “moral teaching and learning” [23] (p. 15) that children can get ethical enlightenment and form ethical consciousness to distinguish themselves from animals, to tell good from evil, as well as to learn to be a human being in accordance with the moral standards and religious rules in society. Therefore, the first function of children's literature should be “moral teaching” and learning, not “aesthetic appreciation” [21] (p. 268). From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the fall of Adam and Eve contributes to understanding the origin, continuation, and progression of human civilization.

4. The cause of the Fall: From original sin to animal factor

The fall of Adam and Eve is often related to “original sin”, initially proposed in the writings of St. Augustine (354–430 AD). That sin does not simply refer to that Adam and Eve transgress God's commandments and eat the forbidden fruit, but suggests that “the consequences of their sin, guilt, and depravity are imputed to their posterity” [17] (p. 306). For example, there is a line in Psalm 51:5, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me”. This original sin becomes the Christian doctrine that “humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct” [36] (p. 420), notably attachment to “materiality, an inclination toward evil, and of course decay and death” [19] (p. 137). Since the sin not only can transform Adam and Eve's “inner nature” and bring “spiritual death and depravity”, but also can be passed on to his “posterity” [37], there should be one thing in common or the same between Adam/Eve and their posterity. So, what in essence the original sin is?

Based on the historical process of human civilization that develops from natural selection to ethical selection, the original sin is associated with the ethical predicament that humans must make a choice between the identity of an animal and that of a human being. In this connection, the original sin can be interpreted as “the commonalities” shared by humans and animals [24] (p. 386). That is, even though Eve and Adam have got physical forms and appearance of human beings through natural selection (or biological evolution), they still share or remain the features and attributes of animals. So, in a biological sense, Eve and Adam are humans, but in a psychological sense, they are in semi-human condition, “half man and half animal”. As Engels concludes, “It is, however, inherent in the descent of man from the animal world that he can never entirely rid himself of the beast, so that it can always be only a question of more or less, of a difference in the degree of bestiality or of humanity” [38]. It is this kind of “bestiality” that causes the fall of Adam and Eve. Thus, the original sin can be interpreted as the “animal factor” [21] (p. 35) that human beings are born with through the “natural selection”. The animal factor “is not identical with the nature of animals” [24] (p. 388), but refers to human beings’ instincts common to all animals, with nature will (motivated by libido) and free will (embodied as desires) being its external manifestations.

In Genesis 2:17, God only says that the fruit of “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” cannot be eaten; but in Genesis 3:3, Eve tells the serpent that “but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die’”. Here, the words “in the middle of the garden” and “touch” represent Eve's animal factor (free will)—her primitive desires to eat the forbidden fruit and get the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, God does not point out which tree is the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and where it is. God only commands that the fruit cannot be “eaten”, while the word “touch” is added by Eve. Those in fact reflect Eve's animal instinct and desire to get and eat the fruit. So, Eve's free will (desire) is not controlled (by her rational will) before she eats the forbidden fruit, and she thinks and behaves with her animal impulse. Moreover, in Genesis 3:1–3:6, triggered by animal factor (natural will motivated by libido), Eve even regards the serpent as her companion. So, she cannot distinguish herself from animals. In feminist or psychological criticism, the serpent is often related to “phallus”. It is a kind of “transcendent signifier of desire” that allows the subject to “separate” him-or herself from the world [39] (p. 3). The serpent represents “the phallic principle, seducing the first woman libidinally and drawing her away from a possessive parent figure, thus liberating her and opening her to gratification at a loftier level of psychic experience” [20] (p. 1302). Thus, driven by natural will, Eve is lured by the serpent and becomes an accomplice to it. The serpent's words “You will not die […] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4–3:5) satisfy Eve's desires, convince her to cast aside her fears, and stimulate her animal instinct—her thirst for knowledge—to eat of the fruit. So, Eve sees “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen 3:6). The words “good” and “delight” hint at Eve's natural will, her animal impulse; while the word “wise” exposes her free will—desire to get the knowledge. Thus, lacking rational judgments about the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, Eve naturally and eventually “took of its fruit and ate” (Gen 3:6).

As for the fall of Adam, on the one hand, he is stimulated by his free will (desire to become wise), because he “was with her” at that time when Eve talks with the serpent (Gen 3:6), which means Adam can also be lured by serpent's words; on the other hand, he is driven by natural will (motivated by libido) so that he eats the fruit given by her wife Eve. In Genesis 3, it is “the inexorable surge of libidinal development that sets the stage, so that the woman encounters little opposition in tempting her male companion to overcome his inhibitions and join her in transgressing God's command” [20] (p. 1299). However, in Genesis 2, in the beginning of God's creation, Adam is “alone” (Gen 2:18), and he is never tempted by the serpent and does not eat the forbidden fruit. At that moment, Adam lives in a so-called state of “innocence” that “all the passions of ambition or avarice, impulses which appear contrary to the higher nobility of human nature, are still altogether quiescent” [9] (p. 259). That means in Genesis 2:7–2:20 Adam's human factor and animal factor may be in unity and harmony. However, God causes “a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept” (Gen 2:21), then makes Adam “a woman” (Gen 2:22) from one of his ribs, which implies Adam's animal factor now is awakened and released, since the woman Eve is later immediately seduced by the serpent.

Since Eve is Adam's bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh—“she shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken” (Gen 2:23), the woman's primitive desire in fact is the manifestation of the man's lust as in Genesis 2 God only commands the man that, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen 2:16–2:17), and God never says it to the woman. Besides, the line that woman and man can “become one flesh” (Gen 2:24) shows that the man can be an existence of “androgyny” [7] (p. 73), or an existence of Sphinx factor—human factor and animal factor. That bone of bones or flesh of flesh can be regarded as the animal factor that humans remain in the body after natural selection. In this aspect, Eve can be the external manifestation of Adam's animal factor, and that can account for why Eve is lured by the serpent at first. Later, Eve becomes “the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20), which also demonstrates Eve's animal nature of fertility and reproduction. There are “the virtues of renunciation, asceticism and restraint” in Old Testament days, and in the Medieval ages, woman is often considered as “the origin of evil”, whose sexual desire is thought to be much stronger than the man's [40] (p. 11). From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, that asceticism can be interpreted as that the animal factor (free will and natural will) of a man must be restrained and controlled by his human factor (rational will), so that he can become rational and moral without animal impulses. In Genesis 3:17, God's punishment that Eve should be “ruled over” by Adam represents that a man's animal factor should be constrained by human factor, while God's punishment that Adam must be in that “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground” (Gen 3:19) emphasizes the importance of restraining animal factor (free will and natural will) and strengthening human factor (rational will) through painful “labor”.

After Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, they get the knowledge of good and evil, gradually have human consciousness and rational will. However, although Adam and Eve know the punishment—“for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen 2:17), they firstly hide themselves “from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8); secondly, Adam lies to God that “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen 3:10); thirdly, when God asks if they eat the fruit, Adam and Eve are ducking the issue and shifting the responsibility: “The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ […] The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate’” (Gen 3:12–3:13). Adam puts the blame on God and Eve, while Eve, on the serpent. Both of them pass on the blame “to each other and, indirectly, to their Creator” [41] (p. 81). Adam and Eve's actions and behaviors demonstrate that their ethical consciousness is not developed perfect enough. In other words, their animal factor (free will or natural will) is still out of control. Maybe in Adam and Eve's eyes they are rational now because they attempt to escape from death, but their wrong judgments and choices would be only rational to themselves. As a matter of fact, they appear to be irrational to us because their actions are immoral and irresponsible. Thus, they are punished by God to develop their human factor and make their animal factor be restrained. In Genesis 3:21, “garments of skins for the man and for his wife” made by God can be understood as “the acquisition of bodily pains” [42] (p. 75), which serves as a punishment that reminds Adam and Eve to be rational and moral.

To realize the animal factor existed in human body is necessary for human's development since the serpent, representing the animal factor, is created by God, and God in some sense provokes the situation to develop human condition, helping Adam and Eve to know themselves and hold on to their human factor. Thus, the fall of Adam and Eve can be considered as a process that God guides his children to be rational, moral, and responsible. Through this process of “knowing yourself”, Adam and Eve will become “mature human beings, responsible to God for their actions” [43] (p. 11). Some scholars even holds that the Fall is designed by God for enabling humans to become like God: “Man is in process of becoming the perfected being whom God is seeking to create” [44] (p. 256). As the prophet Lorenzo Snow summarized, “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be” [qtd. in Ref. 45, p. 39]. God probably has also gone through the process from natural selection to ethical selection to become who he/she is now. So, God leads Adam “from human Bios, or the biological life of man, to that quality of Zoe, or the personal life of eternal worth” [44] (p. 257), through which the man will know the good and the evil, learn to control his animal factor, and generate divine ideas. In this regard, the Lord God before becoming God may be also an existence that has both human factor and animal factor. In Genesis 3:1–3:5, it reads that the serpent is a wild animal created by God, and “the serpent talks” is a clue to its function in the narrative. Indeed, the serpent, disingenuous and malicious, is the only animal endowed with “human speech” [41] (p. 10) and knows about divine things, which may be “the attributes or personifications” of the Lord God [46] (p. 175). So, the serpent that represents the animal factor, to some extent, can be regarded as the agency of God or a part of God, thus Adam and Eve are lured into sin and then know themself better.

“The divine being,” as Feuerbach writes, “is nothing else than the human being, or, rather, the human nature purified, freed from the limits of the individual man, made objective–i.e., contemplated and revered as another, a distinct being. All the attributes of the divine nature are, therefore, attributes of the human nature” [31] (p. 12). The reason why God becomes who he/she is now is because that the animal factor in God's body is entirely restrained and controlled by human factor in the process of ethical selection. Thus, God is much rational, moral, responsible, and divine in the Genesis. For example, although Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, God does not let them die immediately. Instead, God “made garments of skins” to cloth them (Gen 3:21), and only “drove out” them from the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:24). God's act of dressing humans here “reflects care for them in the process of becoming civilized, even though that process involved disobedience” [47] (p. 16). Besides, the curse that God sets to the serpent—“upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life” (Gen 3:14) shows God's rigorous control and entire repression of “animal factor” in life; while the deed that God puts “enmity” between the serpent and the woman, as well as between its “offspring and hers” (Gen 3:15), is to strictly distinguish human beings from animals, emphasizing that a human being cannot be a member of the animals and cannot be completely controlled by animal factor. Meanwhile, due to the animal factor that humans are born with, having sexual intercourse with animals is prohibited in the Genesis. For example, in Exodus 22:19, it reads “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death”.

Different from the Lord God, for Adam and Eve those who have just arisen from nature selection and gradually enter the ethical selection (or for those whose ethical consciousness and rational will have just sprouted), it is hard to balance the animal factor and human factor in the body. Born with Sphinx factor—animal factor and human factor, human beings will always live in the dialogues of “to be or not to be”. In other words, human beings will always face the conflicts between human factor (rational will) and animal factor (free will and natural will), and they must make a choice, and so does their posterity. Therefore, it is of vital importance to restrain the animal factor. For example, in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray is conscious of two contrasting forces (human factor and animal factor) and their moral obligations: “There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality” [48] (p. 129) and “Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him” [48] (p. 222). Nevertheless, driven by animal factor (free will), Gray is overwhelmed by “the pursuit of beauty and sensuality embodied as the artistic image in the portrait” and is confused with his identities—one in the reality and the other in the portrait, then he chooses to “pursue instant gratification without thought of its moral consequence” [24] (pp. 393–394), and finally murders Basil and kills himself.

Besides, it is also not easy to restrain, eliminate, or get rid of animal factor for obtaining human nature and divine glory, such as the Mermaid in Hans Andersen's Little Mermaid and the Monkey King in Wu Chengen's Journey to the West. The Mermaid's pursuit of human form and human nature can be interpreted as her efforts to “make a balance and a choice between animal factor and human factor” [49] (p. 110). The fish tail is the symbol of Mermaid's “animal factor”. However, giving up the tail does not enable Mermaid to obtain real humanity, because she sacrifices her sweet voice, which is an important component of her “human factor”, as well as a necessary tool for her communication with the prince after obtaining human form. The cutting of tongue makes Mermaid's ethical selection of becoming human being fall into a paradoxical ethical dilemma. She will never be able to express her love to the prince. Finally, Mermaid chooses to kill herself, which indicates her failure of obtaining human nature. As for the Monkey King, born as a stone monkey, he does not have human consciousness in the beginning. In the pursuit of immortality and deity, he learns the human languages and rituals, then begins to have ethical consciousness and complete the natural selection. However, “without going through ethical selection”, he lacks human factor (rational will), and his animal factor (free will) is out of control, which leads to his uproar in the Heaven [21] (p. 47). Then, he is punished and buried under a mountain by the Buddha for 500 years. To restrain Monkey King's animal factor (free will), Guanyin (a Bodhisattva) asks the monk Tang Sanzang to induce him to wear a hat with a gold hoop (the embodiment of rational will), so that his free will can be repressed. Monkey King himself also gradually learns to restrain his animal factor in the 81 evils to the Western Heaven. Finally, he completes the ethical selection and achieves Buddhahood, and the gold hoop on his head naturally falls off.

Therefore, from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the fall of Adam and Eve implies that, whether for human beings or animals, in the evolutionary phase of ethical selection or in the process of getting “humanity”—to be good, moral, and divine, the “animal factor” is the biggest drag force. It would be the cause of the Fall or can be called the original sin. The animal factor, an irrational element, accounts for “the animal instinct retained in human beings in the evolutionary process” [24] (p. 389), because like other animals or organisms, there must be “original selfishness” [50] (p. 142), “a genetic predisposition to act in self-serving ways” in humans, and “our self-preservational instincts may point us in such directions, and the culture around us may reinforce those tendencies (or counteract them, as the case may be)” [50] (p. 108). Thus, this animal factor can bring human beings and their descendants into different ethical dilemmas of “to be or not to be”—to make a balance and choice in the conflicts of animal factor and human factor, which gives an explanation for the universality and primordiality of moral evil. Only when the animal factor is controlled and restrained by human factor can an individual be rational and moral. So, from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the Fall is a kind of “wisdom literature” [51] (p. 87), provoking reflections on the nature of human beings with a view to human's moral and spiritual growth.

5. The tragedy of the Fall: To maintain ethical taboo and moral order

The “animal factor” gives rise to the tragedy of Adam and Eve and their posterity: firstly, Adam and Eve lose their “paradise” and are unable to come back forever because God places “the cherubim” at the east of the Garden of Eden and sets “a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3:24); secondly, they become mortal beings, changing from “former angelic and presumably impassable state” to one prone to illness and susceptible to death [42] (p. 74). The British theologian Pelagius (354–420 AD) believes that, expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve from that moment onwards gain the “freedom”, free to exercise “choice” [qtd. in Ref. 43, p. 11]. However, Pelagius's words seem to neglect the relationship between God's punishment and Adam and Eve's sin. As Raymund Schwager points out, “human beings are evil precisely because they have their origin in freedom as well. They may not be minimized or excused because of our animal past” [52] (p. 131). Thus, what the animal factor destroys that is important for God, the ruler and leader in the Garden of Eden, can be further explained. In other words, the underlying reasons that God punishes Adam and Eve, or what the disobeying of God's commands signifies and what God attempts to express to his/her children through the tragedy, are not unfolded.

From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, Adam and Eve's tragedy results from the violating of ethical taboo and moral order that God has established with Adam and Eve through his commandments. Ethical taboo is “the origin of morality”, as well as “the foundation and guarantee” for the establishment and maintenance of moral order in society [22] (p. 192). It is mainly manifested as “incest” and “patricide”, including fratricide, matricide, cannibalism, and in-group murder. The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 is a good example to explain the taboo. As Adam and Eve's posterity, the “original sin” of animal factor is also passed on to or manifested in Cain. In Genesis 4, Cain “was very angry, and his countenance fell” (Gen 4:5) when “the Lord God had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Gen 4:4–4:5). Then, he “rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him” (Gen 4:8). Cain's behaviors are driven by his animal factor (natural will and free will), so he loses his human factor (rational will) and kills Abel. Cain's anger represents his primitive desires to receive recognition and appreciation for his labor, while his choice of killing Abel indicates that he regards the relationship between him and Abel as a competitive relationship between animals. It is a kind of animal instinct for survival and triumph. What he obeys is the law of the jungle among animals: survival of the fittest (to kill or to be killed). The animal factor impels Cain to forget or neglect the blood ties of brothers, which results in his tragedy: “when you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” and anyone who meets Cain may “kill” him (Gen 4:12–4:14). Then, God's words “whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance” (Gen 4:15) reveal God's warnings on the ethical taboo of fratricide—killing each other between blood relatives.

Cain's behavior of breaking ethical taboo is a mirror of Adam and Eve's tragedy. Disobeying God's commandments, from the perspective of psychoanalysis, is an action of betraying, revolting and murdering God, which threatens God's authority, evokes God's wrath, and leads to the punishment of abandonment. Since the relationship between God and Adam and Eve is a copy of parent-child relationship, the fall of Adam and Eve depicts “an early-life variant of the Oedipus complex” [20] (p. 1295), which is “instrumental in motivating religious worship” [53] (p. 975). In the light of ethical literary criticism, that “early Oedipus complex” is the manifestation of ethical taboo and moral order formed in the development of human civilization. The complex relationships between God, Adam and Eve display the early forms of familial relationship and blood relationship. The words “a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24) indicate that a person would naturally take the opposite sex as a substitute for the parent, which in a psychological sense is an action of killing the original parent. Thus, the fall of Adam and Eve can be seen as a story modelled on an event of “parricide”. A person's consciousness of taboo, such as the parricide, begins with “the evolutionary phase of natural selection”, while in the phase of ethical selection, the parricide-led “ethical taboos”, like fratricide, matricide and patricide, become the “ethical rules” that must be observed [24] (p. 391). Once the ethical taboo is broken, there will be punishments and tragedies. That is the reason why the case is presented in Genesis 4 immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve and is specifically highlighted: Cain kills his brother Abel and he is punished by God. The fall of Adam and Eve underlines that only when human beings realize the misfortune caused by breaking familial relationship can they be aware of the importance of maintaining it.

Besides, in Genesis 2:15–2:17, God sets injunctions or requirements for Adam and Eve, which can establish “a certain ethical order” that guides human beings to abide by and obtains “mutual benefit” [54] (p. 64). God's commandments, such as “not eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge”, are the “moral standards” in society, which instruct human beings as to “how they should behave” [55] (p. 150). The forbidden fruit is a metaphor of the moral standard, while the serpent symbolizes the animal factor (natural will and free will) of humans that can leads to breaking the order. It is in line with Paul Ricoeur's views: “the serpent symbolizes something of man and something of the world, a side of the microcosm and a side of the macrocosm, the chaos in me, among us, and outside. But it is always chaos for me, a human existent destined for goodness and happiness” [56] (p. 258). Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit destroys the moral order, thus leading to the punishments. After Adam and Eve break the order, God rebuilds a patriarchal society with Adam as the center. From then on, the concepts of ethics and morality are gradually produced, and human's ethical relations are established. Thus, God is “the ground of the moral laws that ought to govern human behavior and that make possible order between humans” [57] (p. 118). The Old Testament records many cases that human beings violate God's commandments and destroy the moral orders (that God has established with them), and finally God punishes them. For example, in Joshua 7, Achan transgresses “the covenant” that God imposes on Israel: “they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have acted deceitfully, and they have put them among their own belongings” (Joshua 7:11). Then, Achan's punishment comes: “all Israel stoned him to death” (Joshua 7:25). The tragedy of Achan again foregrounds the importance of maintaining the moral order in secular life.

The emergence of ethical taboo in the familial relationship and blood relationship, as well as the establishment of moral order, symbolizes the transition that human beings undergo from ignorance and barbarism to civilization. The understanding of blood ties can promote the emergence of ethical consciousness and the development of social ethics. Then, human beings start to free from ethical chaos, establish the moral order, realize “the necessity of moral order for human survival and reproduction”, and finally comply with the “basic ethical rules such as taboo, responsibility, obligation, and so forth” [22] (p. 190). The taboo often begins with totem. In primitive society, almost every clan has totem, usually an animal. The animal totem is like the Sphinx, which is “a symbol of animal factor remained in human beings and the memory of human beings' biological selection” [21] (p. 41). The serpent in Genesis 3 may be the totem and taboo rooted in Hebrew tradition. The appearance of totem symbol is viewed as “fulfilling in part a sacred injunction to relive the crime of parricide” [53] (p. 982). Thus, taboo can be the result of humans’ controlling of animal factor. In Totem and Taboo, Freud insists that “the beginnings of religion, morals, society and art” are all from “Oedipus complex” [58] (p. 182). He relates it to the libido, unconscious impulse and repressed wishes that are against the moral standards in society. From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the beginnings of religion, art or literary works are produced out of “the demands for ethical expression” and instruction [21] (p. 262). With the textualization of ethical taboos, the religious prohibitions and moral precepts in society are established.

Freud's Oedipus complex just comes from the ethical taboo that Oedipus “killed his father” and “married his mother” [58] (p. 153). In the Oedipus the King, Jocasta tells Oedipus: “And why should you fear the bed of your mother? Many a man has slept with his mother in dreams. He who dismisses such thoughts lives easiest” [59] (p. 41). Based on this, Freud proposes that the origin of Oedipus' tragedy is his Oedipus complex, a psychological tendency of having “sexual impulse” towards the mother, or a “fulfillment” of our repressed wishes in childhood [60] (p. 280). However, from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, Oedipus the King is an “ethical tragedy”, and Oedipus' tragedy comes from “the ethical taboos formed in the development of human civilization and Oedipus' constantly strengthened ethical consciousness” [21] (p. 144). Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother without knowing it at the very beginning. When there are disasters and plagues in the city, Oedipus attempts to look for the causes. Finally, he finds that the murderer is himself because he breaks the ethical taboos: “patricide” and “incest”. Oedipus then gouges out his own eyes. In the Oedipus the King, Oedipus' human factor (rational will) makes him realize the ethical taboos, so he punishes the criminal, himself. Similarly, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet's indecision is also dominated by the ethical taboo and his ethical consciousness, not Freud's view of “Oedipus complex” [60] (p. 282). After Claudius murders Hamlet's father, he marries Hamlet's mother Gertrude, and becomes the King, as well as Hamlet's stepfather. Thus, Hamlet is confronted with the ethical dilemma of “to be or not to be” [21] (p. 254): Hamlet's revenge for his father is under his ethical responsibility and obligation, which is moral; but his revenge on Claudius will break the ethical taboos of “patricide” and “regicide”, which is not moral. Oedipus' ethical tragedy and Hamlet's ethical dilemma highlight the power of human factor in maintaining the ethical taboo and moral order.

However, how to avoid breaking the ethical taboo and moral order in society? On the one hand, it is essential to restrain the animal factor (natural will and free will) and keep the human factor (rational will) when faced with the temptation, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. On the other hand, it may be required to hold on to “divine factor”, the pure faith (in God). That is where the religious education of the fall of Adam and Eve lies in. Adam and Eve lose the paradise not only because of their animal factor, but more importantly, due to their abandonment of divine factor. In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve live in “a state of bliss and communion with God” by obeying God's commands [19] (p. 136). That means Adam and Eve's animal factors are restrained through following God's will, and they, at that time, are seemingly innocent and perfect. However, tempted by serpent, Adam and Eve disobeys God's commands with the swelling of animal factor, and they no longer trust God. Adam and Eve's “sin of growing, maturing, and exercising their powers” is at the expense of abandoning God [53] (p. 986). Although they get the knowledge of good and evil, but “they must live out the full consequences of their newly-acquired knowledge: there is no returning to the state of innocence” [19] (p. 166). The law of the jungle in human society is the observance of ethical taboo or moral order and religious rule that are contracted. Adam and Eve's distrusting and betraying God allude to the breaking of moral order, as well as of religious rule.

For religious people, there are conflicts between divine factor and human factor (or animal factor), which can also bring about the ethical dilemmas of “to be or not to be”, as well as the punishments and tragedies. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, “the conflict between divine factor and human factor” runs through the work and is presented in the “psychological activities” of the protagonists [61] (p. 258). Driven by animal factor, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale commit adultery and break Puritan rules, thus leading to their predicaments and punishments. For Hester, when she is accused of adultery and commanded to tell the name of her child's father, she confronts with the conflict between divine factor and human factor: Hester should speak out the name driven by her divine factor out of the ethical identity as a Puritan woman and a widow, but her human factor—rational will (or animal factor—natural will, manifested as her love for Dimmesdale) reminds her of that if she tells the truth, it will completely destroy Dimmesdale. Hester chooses not to tell the name, which represents her deviation from religious prohibition and moral standard. Then, it leads to her sufferings from expulsion and humiliation through wearing a scarlet letter “A” [62] (p. 48). In this respect, Hester's human factor (or animal factor) brings a disaster to her. In general, it is difficult to find a very best solution to ethical dilemma. Once a choice is made, the result is often tragic, or if a choice is not made, it will also give rise to tragedy [21] (p. 263). For Dimmesdale, witnessing Hester's sufferings, he should tell that he is the child's father due to his human factor (out of conscience, even animal factor, out of love), but with the constraint of his divine factor, he cannot admit that he is the father of Pearl since he is a devout and esteemed priest. In his ethical dilemma, Dimmesdale at first chooses to be silent, but suffers from a guilty conscience; in the end, he climbs upon the scaffold, confesses his sin, and dies in Hester's arms. Dimmesdale's human factor (or animal factor) also leads him into tragedy.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne never narrates about how Prynne commits adultery, or how Dimmesdale is accused of adultery. What he wants to emphasize is the abandonment of divine factor—the loss of pure faith in God. The scarlet letter “A” is the embodiment of divine factor, a symbol of disobeying God’s commandments and eating the forbidden “Apple”. It serves as a reminder of the sin that Prynne and Dimmesdale (or religious people) cannot escape due to their disobedience of moral order and religious rule. From the perspective of the development of human civilization, this “A” (or the fall of Adam and Eve) refers to that all the things start from the letter “A”: humans undergo from the sin of “adultery” due to “animal factor” to the growth of being “adult”, symbolizing the process from “innocence” to “experience” and then from “divinity” to “humanity”. It is “another ethical selection after biological selection, and it is through this selection that human factor can begin to glow and bring humans into maturity, such as having their own ‘ability’ and moving towards independence” [61] (p. 258). However, through back to humanity, human beings need to pursue the divinity for purifying the evil and the sin embodied in human nature, so as to get the forgiveness and salvation from God.

Since the Book of Genesis is not only a literary story provided for ordinary readers, but also a source of divine inspiration served for religious people, for Christians, the cross is the scarlet letter “A”, a symbol of “divine factor”, which can alert the disciple to be devout. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve confront with the conflict between divine factor and human factor (or animal factor) after eating the forbidden fruit: their divine factor tells them to confess their sin for forgiveness, but their human factor (or animal factor) tells them not to do so as it will bring the death. Adam and Eve choose to hide “among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8), and then in some degree, they receive a much more painful punishment than death. The fall of Adam and Eve indicates that the divine factor occupies an absolutely important position in the religious activity and secular life. By exerting the power of divine factor, human beings can get God's salvation. To some extent, it seems to require human beings to stifle feelings and desires and live in an ascetic life, but that kind of life may be clean, innocent and sacred, which may be a way to achieve perfectness, divinity, and “ideal ego”. The divine factor played in upholding moral order and religious rule in society can provide some clues for explaining that some images of God have wings in the myths, arts, and literary works, such as other images of Sphinx (see Fig. 3) and Nüwa (see Fig. 4). In Christian tradition, birds are usually taken as the symbols of virtues or attributes of soul: the eagle is a symbol of the resurrection, standing for faith and constancy. In this regard, the eagle wings in Fig. 3, Fig. 4 can represent “divine factor”, which warns people to be in fear of punishment from God, thus they will spontaneously adhere to the moral standards and religious rules in society.

Fig. 3.

Marble capital and finial in the form of a Sphinx (with a human head, a lion body, and eagle wings), around C1st BC, © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

Fig. 4.

Chinese Nüwa (with a human head, a serpent tail, and wings), murals in Wukui tomb No. 4 of Koguryo relics, around C5th AD, © Koguryo relics in Ji'an, Jilin, China.

In a word, from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the fall of Adam and Eve suggests that the tragedy originates from breaking the ethical taboo and moral order or religious rule in society. To prevent from tragedy is to keep the human factor, restrain the animal factor, and exert the divine factor, namely, to stay rational and moral, control libido and desires, and pursue the divinity (or to have pure faith in God and remain in fear of punishment and reverence for life). God's salvation plan for his children can be displayed in these three aspects. Once the animal factor of a person is out of control, breaking the ethical taboo and moral order (or religious rule) in society without maintaining the human factor and exerting the divine factor, there will inevitably be punishments and tragedies. The fall of Adam and Eve is such an ethical tragedy. This tragedy is an imitation of the “factual events and characters” in real life [46] (p. 161), which can purify the feelings and desires of human beings through “pity and fear” [63] (p. 26) and evoke the moral emotions and divine ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty. The purification of desires and emotions is the underlying moral and religious purpose of this tragedy.

6. Conclusion and limitation

As the core of the Garden of Eden myth, the fall of Adam and Eve expresses and confirms the moral codes and religious values in society, providing moral and religious reflections for our secular life. The Fall is concerned with the “experience” to share and create, connecting us to communities and individuals “who had similar experiences, human experiences, and created stories to express how they processed them” [8] (p. 4). By using religious doctrines and literary forms to describe the scenes of primitive clan society, the Fall reveals the problems encountered by the early human beings in the development of human civilization and their ways to solve, full of thoughts on the “humanity”, such as self-discipline, self-cultivation, or asceticism, as well as on the “morality”, like religious commandments, ethical principles, and moral maxims. It is also related to the memory of individual life experience of early humans in the history, especially on clan taboo, kinship, moral order, contributing to the essential teachings for religious people such as Judaism or Christianity, as well as to the specific requirements for ordinary audience to become moral and perfect. Therefore, the Fall can be a “literal history” [46] (p. 180), which not only describes something true about the “reality” [64] (p. 12), but also creates it.

From the perspective of ethical literary criticism, the motivation of literary writing comes from “the desire of human beings to share moral experience so as to form moral norms” and the history of human civilization shows that “only literary works can achieve the purpose of instruction, praise and punishment through a series of moral cases and examples and then help individual complete the ethical selection of choosing the good, discarding from the evil, and becoming a moral person” [21] (p. 248), the fall of Adam and Eve actually answers how human beings become who they are from natural selection to ethical selection, unfolds the complexity of human nature—the conflicts between animal factor, human factor and divine factor, and finally defines the broad patterns of moral reasoning about “proper conduct and character” [65] (p. 16). Admittedly, there may be some ideological components in the story from the primitive regime, whether in the tribe, clan, state, or religion. The form and content of the Fall have a distinctive world view and value system that it seeks to convey, almost for the construction of moral order and (religious) authority of the leaders in society. However, it is undeniable that the fall of Adam and Eve offers “perhaps above all, a source of religious and moral norms which have enabled communities to hold together, to care for, and to protect one another” [66] (p. 130).

In conclusion, this article adopts ethical literary criticism to analyze the literary and biblical texts and takes the fall of Adam and Eve as an example. It uses a series of terms in ethical literary criticism such as the “natural selection” and “ethical selection” to discuss the origin and progression of human civilization in the Fall, the “Sphinx factor” (animal factor and human factor) and “divine factor” to analyze the Adam and Eve's behaviors and choices in the Garden of Eden, as well as the “ethical taboo” to explore the moral teachings of the Fall. It challenges the traditional doctrine of “original sin” on explaining the fall of Adam and Eve. Besides, some other literary works are added to demonstrate the reliability of the terms, as well as the discussions and conclusions. However, this article only provides an ethical reading of the fall of Adam and Eve and mainly relies on literary interpretations, so whether the terms in ethical literary criticism can be applied into all literary works are not known yet, and some views may be with subjectivity. Future research can continue to explore the conflicts between human factor, animal factor, and divine factor in literary works, as well as to discuss what kind of moral teaching they can bring to readers.

Funding statement

This work was supported by the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Hunan Province (Grant No. 21WLH06), and the Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province (Grant No. CX20220435).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shilong Tao: Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Xi Chen: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.