The Back of the Turtle

“Perhaps it was time for a new beginning. Perhaps it was time for the twins to walk the earth again and restore the balance that has been lost.”

King introduces the theme of rebirth while alluding to the story of “The Woman Who Fell from the Sky.” Gabriel second-guesses his suicide attempt because saving Mei-ling makes him consider the possibility that he has a role to play in a story of resurrection.

“It was one of the small ironies of biology that an organism designed to increase crop production could also be modified to destroy nations.”

Domidion takes elements of the natural world and adapts them for instruments of destruction. He shows no desire to treat these potentially catastrophic materials with care or consideration. His distance from nature is so great that he can only relate to it by perverting it into a method of profit.

“Like it or not, without the initiative and vision of companies such as Domidion, the world would starve.”

Dorian thus justifies the consequences of Domidion’s mistakes. He argues that because their progress in the field of biotechnology is vital to the world’s continued survival, it’s permissible for the company to occasionally wipe out a community or two. But this is the case only because decades of mistreating the Earth have led to alterations in the landscape. Domidion’s continual destruction of the Earth feeds into the demand for their products. Dorian also declines to acknowledge that humans could attempt to stop disturbing the Earth on such a large scale and let the natural world regenerate its life-giving resources.