This Other Eden

by

Paul Harding

Patience Honey Character Analysis

Patience is an Irish woman who marries Benjamin Honey and becomes one of the first settlers on Apple Island. About a decade after the first settlers come to Apple Island, a great flood hits it and wipes much of it away. Along with the other Honeys, Patience climbs a tall tree to try to escape the flood, and although the water at one point covers her head, it never covers the flag for the island that she holds up, symbolizing the endurance that her descendants on the island will display. The union of Patience and Benjamin represents how Apple Island is a mix of different cultural traditions.

Patience Honey Quotes in This Other Eden

The This Other Eden quotes below are all either spoken by Patience Honey or refer to Patience Honey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Theme Icon
).
Part 1 Quotes

Benjamin Honey—American, Bantu, Igbo—born enslaved—freed or fled at fifteen, only he ever knew—ship’s carpenter, aspiring orchardist, arrived on the island with his wife, Patience, née Raferty, Galway girl, in 1793.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Benjamin Honey
Related Symbols: Apples
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

[…] I held that foolish flag as high as I could, and the water rose up my shoulder, and the water rose up to my raised elbow, and the water rose up my forearm, and the water reached my wrist, and so there was just my one hand holding that motley little tattered flag sticking up above the surface of the flood, and the waters rose up my fingers, and just as my hand was about to disappear and that flag and all us Honeys be swallowed up in the catastrophe, the water stopped rising.

Related Characters: Patience Honey (speaker), Esther Honey, Benjamin Honey
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2 Quotes

Bridget had an abashed affection for the man but he seemed like a living memorial, or like a guardian spirit, or quite what she could not say, but that an inner decorum and formality and modesty of manner were required when she was with him, which she loved and which she felt with no one else. He alone made her feel as if her work, her life, in America, the awful trip over the ocean, being away from her mother and father—so far away it barely felt real anymore, felt as if her sorrow and longing were for people and places her imagination had invented—Mr. Hale alone could make her feel as if her job were important enough to bear being an orphan.

Related Characters: Bridget, Patience Honey, Thomas Hale
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

As the light left the sky, John Thorpe saw Zachary Hand to God wading away from the island across the channel, chest-deep in the water. Zachary held what looked like an old faded and patched flag bundled and knotted together by the corners above his head. His silhouette cut through the invisible current of the tide and to Thorpe he looked like a threadbare angel abandoning the wrecked ship over which he’d once been guardian, light fanning across the water behind him as he pushed against the incoming flood.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
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Patience Honey Quotes in This Other Eden

The This Other Eden quotes below are all either spoken by Patience Honey or refer to Patience Honey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Theme Icon
).
Part 1 Quotes

Benjamin Honey—American, Bantu, Igbo—born enslaved—freed or fled at fifteen, only he ever knew—ship’s carpenter, aspiring orchardist, arrived on the island with his wife, Patience, née Raferty, Galway girl, in 1793.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Benjamin Honey
Related Symbols: Apples
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

[…] I held that foolish flag as high as I could, and the water rose up my shoulder, and the water rose up to my raised elbow, and the water rose up my forearm, and the water reached my wrist, and so there was just my one hand holding that motley little tattered flag sticking up above the surface of the flood, and the waters rose up my fingers, and just as my hand was about to disappear and that flag and all us Honeys be swallowed up in the catastrophe, the water stopped rising.

Related Characters: Patience Honey (speaker), Esther Honey, Benjamin Honey
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2 Quotes

Bridget had an abashed affection for the man but he seemed like a living memorial, or like a guardian spirit, or quite what she could not say, but that an inner decorum and formality and modesty of manner were required when she was with him, which she loved and which she felt with no one else. He alone made her feel as if her work, her life, in America, the awful trip over the ocean, being away from her mother and father—so far away it barely felt real anymore, felt as if her sorrow and longing were for people and places her imagination had invented—Mr. Hale alone could make her feel as if her job were important enough to bear being an orphan.

Related Characters: Bridget, Patience Honey, Thomas Hale
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

As the light left the sky, John Thorpe saw Zachary Hand to God wading away from the island across the channel, chest-deep in the water. Zachary held what looked like an old faded and patched flag bundled and knotted together by the corners above his head. His silhouette cut through the invisible current of the tide and to Thorpe he looked like a threadbare angel abandoning the wrecked ship over which he’d once been guardian, light fanning across the water behind him as he pushed against the incoming flood.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis: