The World on Turtle's Back

Dark and light are among the most foundational symbols in literature. Humans do not see well in the dark, and nighttime exposes people to a variety of risks, including cold and predators. By contrast, light enables sight and understanding, warms what it touches, and enables crops to grow. For all of these reasons, people tend to associate light and dark with good and evil, respectively. However, while this association informs “The World on Turtle’s Back,” it is not the full story. As the story begins, there are two ancient worlds defined by light and dark. The story’s human (or humanlike) characters live in the upper world of light, but the lower world of darkness is not evil. The “monsters” who inhabit this world respond with alarm to Enigorio’s creation of celestial lights and flee from them, but not because they are bad; rather, darkness is what they know, and they do not want humans to see them.

The myth, therefore, depicts darkness not so much as evil as primordial. It is the baseline state of the world into which the woman falls, but from a human point of view, it is insufficient and even threatening.