"The Paradise of Children" - Samuel Thigpen

Nathaniel Hawthorne was known for writing short stories, and this short story comes from the collection called A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. The story starts out in Tanglewood where it has just become winter, and there is a huge snow storm that all the children are excited about. Eustace, the story teller, is not too pleased with the huge snow storm and is asked by a naughty girl named Primrose to tell a story. Eustace decides to tell a variation of the Greek myth, Pandora’s Box, except they are all children involved.  

       First, let’s start with the introduction and ending of the short story. There isn’t really much going on. The main purpose is to set up a setting and a few of the characters. Hawthorne does a really good job using personification to describe how heavy it was snowing. The example he uses is, “It seemed as if the hills were giants, and were flinging monstrous handfuls of snow at one another, in their enormous sport.” At the end, I really enjoy the part where Primose is talking about how one of her classmates not knowing what some troubles were despite more than likely being the same age. This is probably Nathaniel Hawthorne uses that part to either make fun of people who think they have had it more rough than him, or he used it to show that he has went through a lot more than people think he has. I feel like it is him making fun of people because he uses the child as the communicator, and children are known for their humor and joking manner.
      Second, there is the story that Eustace tells the children. The main points that need to be pointed out about the middle section is the use of foreshadowing and the use of themes. The foreshadowing occurs not too long after Pandora sees the box. Hawthorne shows that the beginning of “Trouble” started with Pandora’s curiosity of what was in the box. “This was at first only the faint shadow of a Trouble; but, every day, it grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage of Epimetheus and Pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other children.” This shows foreshadowing by saying that “Trouble” grew more and more each day. The main theme of this short story is sin. Sin is one of Hawthorne’s most overused themes. We can determine this based off all the number of times that “Trouble” is mentioned after Pandora opens the box. It is just another word for sin.
      Last, there is definitely a reference to other works of literature or myths in this short story, and that is the reference to the Greek’s myth about Pandora’s Box. In the Greek myth, Pandora is the first human woman and is the punishment for the world due to Prometheus’ stealing of the secret fire. She opens a box that lets all of the “Troubles”. It is exactly like the short story, and there is another creature in there that resembles Hope. Obviously, “The Paradise of Children” resembles the Greek’s myth identically, but is there a possibility of there being another reference in this story? I believe the answer is yes. This short story also refers to Adam and Eve of the Bible. Pandora is given to Epimetheus because he does not have a “playfellow” and he needs somebody. God created Eve because he felt that Adam was lonely. In the story, there is a mysterious box compared to the forbidden apple in the Bible, but it was still mysterious because we did not know what the apple could do. Pandora becomes curious and opens the box while Eve became curious as well. The guy in both situations could have stopped the female, but both of them were curious as well. Both of these situations also released either “Trouble” or sins into the world for the first time.