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ELLEN SPOLSKY, Sent Away from the Garden? The Pastoral Logic of Tasso, Marvell, and Haley

ty-first-century give-aways. His report is our first hint of a green world.
In a genre reversal, the green enters a black world rather than the snake
being discovered in the garden. Here it is, as read by Morris to Sims:

I enter the Hideaway. The first thing I experience is the trees. The flick-
ering light and soft sound as they sway in the sun and wind is almost
overwhelming. They surround a beautifully rendered 1880s Gothic Re-
vival with a squeak in the top porch step. I ring the doorbell. I can ac-
tually feel my hand sweat, clutching my carpetbag, I peek through a
window and spy figures in the foyer – an impeccably dressed man
stroking the face of one of the children – a li le girl – (13).

Here, Sims interrupts with the denial at the center of the play’s inter-
est: “They. Are not. Children.” The inspector answers: “I guess that
depends on context, Mr Sims. Or should I call you – Papa?” (13). Papa,
it turns out, is the role Sims himself plays at The Hideaway. He stars
in his own creation as the children’s father, renting them out to on-
line visitors, and, as is hinted by the report of his stroking the child’s
cheek – both loving and taking advantage of them as he pleases. An-
other character – a client (a user? an abuser?) named Doyle is also in-
vestigated, in hopes that he will provide evidence against Sims. Doyle,
like Sims, has been leading a double life – one online and one off. His
wife does not know about his travels to the Hideaway, or his relation-
ship with the lovely li le girl named Iris. The online world, we come
to understand, provides him with a full gamut of pleasure. He can do
whatever he likes with or to the li le girl, all the while allowed to be-
lieve he is indulging in childish fun. Having shown one of her visitors
how to play jacks, she moves on with the program. She stands and
raises her dress, pulling it off over her head. She offers her visitor an
axe, encouraging him to use it. The shocking appearance of this prop,
like the satyr in Aminta, breaks the illusion, raises the stakes for the
audience. And as in the classical pastoral, as Sampson notes, the emer-
gence of “egocentricity and violence, pervert[s] the golden age of ideal
16
love as a freely given gift, to one of theft and rape.” Iris assures her

16 Sampson, 79.

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