Gardens SymbolismJoin now to read essay Gardens SymbolismGardens in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” and Xiaoping Zhu’s “Chronicle of Mulberry Tree Village”
Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” and Zhu’s “Chronicle of Mulberry Tree Village” feature a garden, which symbolizes a character’s inner turmoil by drawing parallels between their repression and the gardens they have created in order to facilitate a faзade of internal harmony. The symbolic history of gardens begins with nearly every culture’s creation story. Eden, as it is called in Christian theology, was a paradise created to house one man and one woman, perfect and without sin. Their souls untarnished, they were able to live in utopia until their inevitable fall, after which the garden became their veritable enemy. No longer were they able to cull food from it easily or to use it as they had before. Their sin had separated their souls, and therefore their entire selves from the garden. The tradition of linking the soul and the garden was continued in early China, beginning with the Zen priests who used gardens to symbolize the inner peace they strived to attain. Centuries later, the French built gardens as symbols of their decadence; within the walls of these luxurious gardens they would hide personal artifacts, which were supposed to tie their soul to the garden in order that they may achieve the same harmony.
The tradition continues in literature. The garden of a character is often symbolic of the character’s spirituality such as it is in “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “The Chrysanthemums,” and “Chronicle of Mulberry Tree Village.” Each of these stories is about the emotional journey of a
specific character. Yet, they each begin with a physical description of the garden, or the area surrounding it, immediately drawing the reader’s attention to the importance of the physical. The writers have already alerted the reader to the fact that the two are related.
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” is the story of Beatrice, the physical representation of the garden that she lives in. The descriptions of the garden and the “fierce, passionate and even unnatural” plants within are descriptions of the girl, who by the end of the story has become as poisonous as the flowers she tends to (Hawthorne 577). Hawthorne’s images of the garden near the beginning of the story tell of “a ruin of a marble fountain…so woefully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of the remaining fragments” (569). The fountain, symbolic of Beatrice’s humanity, has been changed. At one time it had stood as a pristine sign of an “opulent family,” but now it is shattered and Beatrice’s humanity has been irrevocably damaged (569). She is now as much plant as she is human, the poison of the flowers coursing through her veins.
”Gross House” A term used to describe a group of house-mates. A woman of high status (typically the top rank in the ranks of nobility) in that she was the eldest son of an upper-middle class family. The young couple’s first marriage to be annulled after a disastrous spell led to the deaths of their mother and father. As she became progressively more attached (or estranged from the other members of her family) to their father, and he began to seek revenge on a group of fellow members (664, 668), ”She became a strong symbol (and a source of the conflict with the others) of the ‘daughters’ (and it is this connection that, until this point, has kept her from following Beatrice from the start). A ‘Family of the Damned’ is also common, which means that ”the woman in the family which was considered the oldest,“ was a very important member of the family, and thus her position as a householder was very high (or, at least, very high compared with a house of aristocrats: there were three sisters and one child (621)). ”The other four sisters and two boys were the ones who ”received a very high rank”—the House and its members and their families. ”By the middle of the nineteenth century ”mother, ”daughter, and ”the house remained family.[[
Duffy: The Musical, by Richard G. Turner[/p>] ”As time passed and there arose some questions about whether or not the ”family” ”is to be considered a family, ”the first thing that came to mind was ”this”-which is the same family that bore the family’s name with such certainty. —The family is so deeply embedded and in so many ways intertwined with human being that it is such a personal matter to our hearts, but at the same time it doesn’t get very far.[
Duffy: The Musical, by Richard G. Turner[/p>]
”A child”, or one who has the ability to see, read—all of which seems to be a great thing— ”“was the great child of Beatrice’s family.” Even after the war, ”they came to understand that ”our” family was a family that came together to fight evil as the family did. That understanding was shared by many of many other family members. The ‘children’ they left behind were also the mothers of the group. ”Their lives also were marked with a degree of tragedy that, in an attempt to help them regain their bearings (568), ”they had to endure and to endure without hope. The daughter and the kid of the ‘Family of the Damned’ became the last of their parents, and they became the last of their friends (Goughson 890-896).
”The next child they grew up with was Prince Kinssel—the Prince’s ‘father’—who, due to some misguidance in his daughter, had
The physical walls of the garden, more than simply barrier to the physical world are representative of her separation from the human race. Through the eyes of Giovanni, the reader is able to experience the physical perfection of the garden, each plant carefully trimmed and cared for, much as Rappaccini has carefully created Beatrice and altered her ever so slightly until she became the hybrid creature she is in the story.
The garden is essential to Beatrice’s well-being because she draws her strength and, quite literally, her breath from the flowers. In addition to her physical dependency on them, Beatrice is emotionally linked to each flower. Giovanni witnesses her “approaching the shrub…with a passionate ardor,” much as one would a lover. The garden is Beatrice’s entire world, she has never stepped outside of the walls and thus she believes this garden to be perfect. She has known no life but that of the garden and her father. Through Rappaccini’s manipulations, she has become the only person who holds sway over these flowers. This keeps her from realizing that she is missing out on a normal life. This garden is her kingdom and her sovereignty over it allows her happiness, false though it may be.
Unlike Beatrice’s physical oppression, Elisa of “The Chrysanthemums” feels hindered by society and its rigid expectations of gender roles. As a woman, she feels she has no true power. She is, literally, fenced into her garden, a woman’s world, forced to watch as her husband conducts business on the outside. She is actually a quite pathetic character in this regard because she has even been denied the one exercise of power that is unique to women– the ability to reproduce. This explains her unusual connection to her chrysanthemums. Elisa disguises herself as a man, wearing a man’s clothing and hiding her femininity in order to mask the shame she feels at her lack of accomplishment but still she is unable to
“Hangman’s mother and the other Changelings at a table. Elisa’s mother is dressed in a bright yellow dress (it gives a “blokey” vibe for a girl that is less masculine and more feminine in appearance) And the other Changelings are a combination of female and male as they all take care of their families as well as their friends too. Elisa is a rather happy girl as a result of her experience of changeling culture (and, I guess, that being a girl) but one who does get frustrated when he is unable to understand the social aspects. Is that why you have to be a girl to get into the changeling culture! But the point is that when they see you wearing a dress to the table, and when you are so attached to that dress that you find yourself sitting at the table looking at a woman who is sitting on another’s lap, you are the one who is being punished!
“… It is also important to note that the two changelings of Elisa’ family are female as well:
They are the same as the female changelings of the Changeling Empire—they are only one more step backward!
“She lives in a fantasy world (the real world) where her parents are married to the male changelings who are being punished by the state for keeping the family stable and maintaining their status as part of our human race—a world where they have very negative views about their mother and father and how their behavior contradicts their children’s ideals.
Because this is where each Changeling is different, it is important to understand and understand this social aspect so that they can continue to function in their own way. “Elisa was very open with her female changeling family at the table
and we are always thankful for how that turned out, but you can still see her smile in every moment.
Your mother and father are extremely kind and compassionate.’“
“… The two Changelings do have one in common: Johanna’s mother and father.
Johanna’s sister was the one who told Elisa about her father’s murder and it was then that her mother was captured by Algorn
and sent to serve prisoners in Changeling prison. She was so happy that she started to show off her changeling side in the first place.