Some years back I visited the Old Salem Toy Museum (now defunct) and browsed through an enormous collection of toys from the colonial period onwards. The museum had numerous large sets of Noah’s Ark toys from the Victorian period. These were virtuoso pieces for the toymakers: a big ship, but then tons of intricate little animal figurines, each in pairs.
I had to wonder about why a story of near total genocide should be such a popular topic for parents looking for children’s toys. Granted, there was a morbid turn to the Victorian mind; think of funeral portraits, hair jewelry and the rural cemetery movement. I can imagine a Victorian mother telling the story and dwelling on all those unfortunates who were ground into the rocks by the rising flood. What a great Calvinist story.
But why is it still popular today? Why did my sister-in-law decorate her nursery with a Noah’s Ark theme?
I’m pleased to see that Anna Batler, who writes the column The Girl and the Drash here Patheos, has wondered the same thing:
The presence of these books and toys in my young daughter’s world is disturbing when considering the story of Noah’s Ark. It is not a story that resonates with contemporary values. The flood is a chilling narrative of Divine retribution for human imperfection. Except for nine people, and two of each land animal, the entire inhabitance of our earth perished in a hopeless flood. Reinventing this particular narrative feels wrong, like we’re condoning God’s actions. In particular, the contemporary value of inclusion is utterly at odds with this story of utter exclusion. There was no room for us on the ark. The image of a child playing with Noah’s Ark ought to be a jarring one. Why isn’t it?
On the surface, it’s not surprising that the toys are so popular. On one hand, they are religious, which we often unthinkingly consider to mean wholesome. On the other hand, the story has lots of cute animals, a big scary bit with all the rain, and then a nice happy rainbow at the end.
But what about all the rest? We just don’t think about that, which is interesting because the death and destruction is central to the story. But we are never introduced to any of the characters that died, so they aren’t real to us. Their like the expendable characters in an action movie who’s entire purpose is to run on screen just long enough to take a bullet. Or one of Star Trek’s red shirts, who exist to deliver that one line, “Captain, I found something …. eaaaghhhh!”
Or another biblical comparison, we could look at the children of Job who were killed off. But it’s all OK, because Job got new kids at the end of the story. We’re not really supposed to look at that too hard.
On the whole, I think the popularity of the Noah story is a disturbing example of the human ability to ignore the horrors that happen to other people off-screen.
It’s the animals that make it appealing for children. If the toys included dead animals and dead humans it wouldn’t be as popular.
signed – Captain Obvious
Indeed … although part of me wants to see Noah’s Ark wallpaper for nurseries that also includes cartoony human corpses, floating next to the ark, banging into it … and the two vultures on board, perched on the edge with a “Dinner time!” look on their faces :)
I had problems with this one as a kid when my folks read from The Children’s Illustrated Bible. The story of Abraham and Isaac wasn’t such a treat either.
I think that the story resonates because of the social darwinistic aspect of the whole thing. Take a look at the current state of affairs, and the “chosen” few being the ones who survive while the chattel and the peasants die off horribly. It’s like a mini-rapture. I think it’s kind of a stark reflection on the mentality of current conservative christians mentality that they’ll be the ones to ride that big boat out of the terrible state of thing.
Fundies may have their own morbid reasons for thinking it a suitable tale for children (some of them openly relish the idea of unworthy or unrepentant people getting killed), but I think the primary reason why us more ordinary folks tend not to give the actual message of the story much second thought is because it has the trademark qualities of a fable (and should be taken as seriously).
The Flood story reads much like a fairytale where all the bad people die horribly and the good people live happily ever after. It’s a pretty common story template, and usually also rather entertaining and satisfactory, as long as you don’t analyze these stories too deeply – which most of us usually don’t.
Oh, and cute and exotic animals obviously always appeal to children of all ages. Zebras and elephants and giraffes and tigers and kangaroos! No mention of tarantulas or tsetse flies or parasites, of course.
I don’t get what’s wrong with rural cemeteries, though. People have always mourned over corpses, even knowing that there is no longer any reason to be attached to them. Of course it’s morbid–any method of disposing of or honoring the dead will be.
Failure to dispose of the dead is even more morbid, IMHO. See Bates, Norman.
Nine people? Noah&wife, 3 sons&wives (one each). That makes eight.
(From Wikipedia’s entry on Noah: “The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family (his wife, three sons, and their wives) “)
If there were nine on board, it would make god’s treatment of humanity so much less barbarous. After all, killing “all but 8 people on earth” is absolutely horrid, but only killing “all but 9 people on earth” has a rather benevolent sound to it.