Forbidden Fruit: How Zitkála-Šá Condemns Christianity in American Indian Stories Abigail Hingle College

In Genesis III of the Bible, a serpent approaches Eve, the original woman, in the Garden of Eden. The sly serpent asks Eve if she has eaten from every tree in the garden, and she replies that she has eaten from all but one. There is a tree in the middle of the garden that has remained untouched by Eve and her companion, Adam. The Lord God stated that if they ate or even touched the banned fruit, widely believed to be apples, the act would result in their deaths. However, the serpent urges Eve to pick from the tree by saying, “Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”[1] Eve is convinced by the serpent, and she easily persuades her husband to follow her. Once they eat the fruit, they suddenly realize that they are naked, and the Lord God appears. The Lord God finds out from Adam what the two have done, and he curses them both, saying that he will “multiply thy sorrow.”[2] In Christian tradition, it is the eating of the fruit that ultimately leads to all of the misery that humanity has to endure, and it is this powerful imagery that Zitkála-Šá uses as an act of rebellion against Christianity in her collection of short...