The Garden of Eden (Symbol)
When the God’s Gardeners started turning wastelands into gardens, Toby couldn’t even imagine how beautiful they could be. Their Edencliff Rooftop Garden “blossomed as a rose”. It was an island of nature in an ocean of stone, bricks and metal. The idea of Eden has been always appealing. This legend is not going to lose its popularity, for it is a symbol of that happy, harmonious and love filled life the majority of contemporary people deprived of. The Garden of Eden is also a symbol of a spiritually full life.
The Waterless Flood (Allegory)
The Waterless Flood is an allegory of a severe punishment for our sins. The murderous virus has no mercy, it is invisible, there is no a cure for it and it spread as quickly as a real flood. The Waterless Flood burns “through the air as if on wings, it burns through cities like fire, spreading gem-ridden mobs, terror, and butchery”. An epidemic becomes an instrument of punishment.
Survival instinct (Motif)
“To clutch any straw” to survive is the main human instinct, the survival instinct. This story is not only about the frightening future of mankind but also about our ability to fight till the very end. Although the protagonists of the story are often put in such conditions that others would have let despair to take over them, they continue fighting, for when one has nothing but his or her life, he or she starts valuing it more than anything.
