The first thing that caught my attention in “salt slow” was the inclusion of two characters of opposite gender and the fact that they seemed to be on a journey away from somewhere comfortable. When Armfield wrote, “takes up his apple knife,” I was sure that they were a new take on the story of Adam and Eve. We later learn that this “Eve” has a miscarriage– according to the mother of the story, it seems to be her fault– and this introduces the sin. However, this version of the story is further complicated and dissected in a way that makes the reader think about gender roles and the meaning of survival.
In this story, “Eve” is more focused on the “after” of the survival; as she looks at the world around them, she focuses on the birds and thinks, “Bigger wings make it easier to stay airborne for weeks at a time.” Armfield is using the limited third-person perspective in a way that makes us attuned to how Eve processes her journey and wants to live through the catastrophe– more than live through it, I think, but also make something meaningful through it. This is emphasized by the fact that the man was the one with appetite, not the woman. On the journey, Eve is constantly observing his need to eat and be satiated with good food, but she ignores this need of his. Her thoughts are focused on what they’ve lost, and what might remain: she’s thinking about shorelines, the knowledge she wants to retain, and stories of her childhood that she hopes has survived. These emotions and thoughts culminate in the resurfacing of her child, which Adam clubs and throws overboard.
While she’s explaining her pregnancy, Eve goes through changes that make her uncomfortable. These changes are further exasperated by the way her body shifts supernaturally. Instead of just growing a heavy belly, she’s also growing webbed feet and hands, making it harder to connect with Adam. It’s like she’s being betrayed by her body. The line, “A very slender sort of betrayal, the deliberate absence from a room,” also stuck out to me, because being birthed is also the action of leaving a “room:” the womb. I think Armfield has juggled a lot of complicated emotions in this story, and the ones that stuck out the most clearly to me was the way a woman can feel betrayed, both by a lover and by her own body, and her own “god-given” role of the continuation of society by being a woman; what is it that she’s supposed to contribute to society, and why?