A Children's Bible

Millet’s habit of Satirizing Society Through Biblical Allegory is immediately apparent, for in an implicit biblical allusion, Millet’s story begins in an Edenic setting that combines forest, field, and ocean and features child protagonists who share a deep affinity for the natural world, just like the first humans in the Garden of Eden. However, like her biblical namesake Eve, Evie has already lost paradise because she is haunted by the knowledge that the pristine natural world around her is doomed, and she is helpless to prevent it. Because global warming and its catastrophic effects are a “done deal,” she believes that the older generations are to blame, and this belief becomes an echo of “original sin,” for which the blameless young are punished. Just as Eve shares the fruit of knowledge with Adam, Evie reluctantly tells her younger brother Jack about the impending loss of paradise. Jack himself recognizes this biblical parallel, and his frequent references to A Child’s Bible provide a metacommentary on Millet’s story as the novel unfolds, for Jack will often points out parallels to other cataclysmic events of the Bible, such as the Flood, the Exodus, and the Crucifixion. However, as a character, Jack represents far more than a plot device to belabor Millet’s use of biblical allegory. As the novel’s crises take their toll, he shares prophet-like revelations of his own and comes to see the ancient texts of the Bible in a creative and original way.

The interactions between the children and the adults highlight the complex issues of Generational Conflict and Social Responsibility. With a few exceptions, the children in the novel are thoughtful and eco-conscious, and this exemplifies the main apple of discord between them and their parents, whom the kids regard as “garbage-like” betrayers of their future. To exacerbate this impression, the parents refuse to discuss anything “serious” and instead spend their time “barking” with inane laughter at the witless banter of their friends, while getting drunk or high. The kids take revenge on them in various underhanded ways by polluting their drinks or destroying the rented house’s décor. None of this passive-aggressive behavior rises to the level of activism, but because they believe mass extinction to be inevitable, their actions imply their underlying conviction that there is no action left to take except those of petty revenge. Meanwhile, the parents strike a sharp contrast to their kids, exhibiting a universal indifference to global warming and a lack of acknowledgement for the human race’s responsibility. Likewise, the “vague circuits” in which they wander through the party house mirror their aimless, self-centered lives and careers. In some ways, their insouciance resembles that of animals; like dogs, they “bark” with mindless laughter, and like the fabled ostrich, they hide their heads in the metaphorical sand. To the kids, however, the animals of the forest and the fields embody a higher and more moral, form of life. As for the kids themselves, they will eventually transcend the pettiness of these initial activities and come to embrace bolder qualities such as adaptability, courage, and loyalty to each other, especially in a crisis. As the story unfolds, these elements of resilience are designed to hint that there is still hope for the future of humanity.

While the children of the “great house” represent the more positive segment of humanity, the super-rich “yacht kids” are implied to have signed a metaphorical devil’s pact with the Serpent in the Garden (their parents). The fact that their yacht is named Cobra makes this allusion clear. Flawlessly educated on ecology and everything else, the yacht kids owe their loyalty only to their parents, who are characterized as world-polluting tycoons planning to shelter in private super-yachts and “survival compounds” while the world erupts in chaos. Because the yacht kids cynically subscribe to this policy, they stand as foils to Evie and her friends. While Evie’s group fights the “enemy” of the older generation in their own small way, the yacht-kids complacently curry favor so that they can join their parents in pampered safety, safe from the worst effects of the climate crisis. As David later states, “Those are the people that ate the planet” (54). Significantly, the yacht Cobra will slip away unharmed through the storm, implying that the ones most responsible for climate change are often the most thoroughly shielded from its catastrophic effects.