The Monkey Garden The Monkey Garden by Sandra Cisneros tells the story of a young girl’s loss of childhood innocence. The story is narrated by a mature woman remembering her initiation into adolescence through the images and events that occurred in an unused neighborhood lot. She is not ready to mature into adolescence and uses her imagination to transform the lot into a fantasy garden--a place where she can hide from the adult world. The garden is the vehicle in which the narrator reveals her reluctance to leave behind the imaginary world of childhood and see the realities of the adult world. The evidence supporting this interpretation is the imagery of hiding. The narrator uses the garden to hide from reality and the …show more content…
Objects in the garden that reflect the reality of the lot and not the fantasy of the garden are not transformed into bigger than life images, but silent, unseeing objects. Abandoned cars, weeds, and rotting wood close their eyes and sleep. Sleeping, these objects are hidden, unable to see themselves or others in the garden. “ worms blind and afraid of the light” and “ spiders” hide under the surface of the garden, unable to see the reality of the lot (paragraph 4). The narrator believes she, too, can hide from reality in the garden. “ had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot them” (paragraph 5). That is what she wanted from the garden, to be hidden or forgotten, as a child, “ a thousand years” like the “ of murdered pirates and dinosaurs” buried in the garden (paragraph 7). The friends of the narrator, however, do not hide in the imaginary world of childhood and are maturing into adolescents. Sally, “ screamed if she got her stockings muddy,” felt they were too old to “ the games” (paragraph 9). Sally stayed by the curb and talked to the boys (paragraph 10). The story’s crisis evolves when the narrator witnesses Sally flirting with the boys. The boys take Sally’s keys and won’t give them back until she kisses each one. Sally feigns anger at first, and then agrees to play the game. Her
Lizabeth struggles with her emotions when she says, “I was still child enough to scamper along with the group over rickety fences and through bushes that tore our already raggedy clothes, back to where Miss Lottie lived” (261). Lizabeth is caught in a sort of limbo, acting childish, yet feeling as though she ought not to be. Consequently, she feels as though she possibly should be acting more mature. “Our already raggedy clothes” demonstrates how her clothes are dirty and ripped like a child’s clothes would be. Furthermore, the children are rushing to Miss Lottie’s to taunt her, an immature act in itself. Additionally, Lizabeth also shows how she wants the best of both childhood as well as adulthood when she says, “Y'all children get the stones, I’ll show you how to use ‘em” (263). Although she appears mature by displaying courage when she says, “I’ll show you how to use ‘em,” the fact that she is showing them how to tease a neighbor completely contradicts that. Acting just as immature as the children she’s talking to, Lizabeth is hardly a grown adult to be taken seriously. Through the emotions and phony bravado, Lizabeth’s acts and words paint a clear picture of her
In the book Seedfolks, a character named Kim travels to vacant lot in her town, Cleveland Ohio, to plant Lima Beans to honor her father, who passed away before Kim was even born. While Kim is in the process of planting her beans and watering them daily, people around the vacant lot being to notice her actions . Many people follow what Kim is doing and make there own little garden, which causes the community of Cleveland to be together and to communicate to one another. Throughout the book many character come and go to the garden, and each character shares something in common with someone else apart of this Community Garden. The novel Seedfolks shows that the garden has change everyone’s perspectives on things, and made them feel apart of something they might have never been apart of before. Some people that are involved are KIm, Ana, Sae Young, Maricela, and Curtis.
The book, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is about a little girl named Mary who discovers a garden that had been kept a secret for a very long time. After Mary became an orphan, she was forced to move in with her uncle, Mr. Craven, who is a very busy businessman and lives in a very big house. At that time Mary was a depressed girl who disagreed with everybody and wanted to live in her own world. She, however, is a very curious girl who isn’t afraid of anything. When she hears crying noises coming from one of the rooms in the house, she follows the noise and she finds Collin Craven. Collin is Mary’s cousin who she didn’t know existed. Collin is very depressed because he is
19. This quote is referring to “the Garden” often mentioned throughout the text, whereby it was set up by Wills’ mother in order to fulfil the previous aspirations of creating a veggie patch created by Will’s Deceased Father and herself. However, this initial idea gradually transforms into a setting which serves as a connection between Will and his Mother. In correlation strengthening their relationship and also creating a source of relief when dealing with grief, in order to better bond with their selves. Therefore, the Author symbolises “the Garden” as a place of healing and growth which can also be correlated to the idea of growth in a plants life seen in the Veggie
Alice begins her story with Dee’s mother describing her precious yard. The way the narrator describes this bond shows that the yard is something that she keeps very close to her house and that she’s proud. To Dee’s mother the yard, sort of represents a little quite place that she can think and put her thoughts together. She treats it like a child and makes sure
The garden was something she built with her own hands just like her home that she cherishes and accomplished something that only men were viewed in the society as being able to complete such a feat. Her building and taking care of the garden shows her passion and determination in life, as it is something she crafted and learned on her own with no ones
Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “The Poisonwood Bible” is a novel centered around the idea of self-sacrifice for the betterment of a group. However, it is revealed to the reader through the character of Nathan Price that one man's sacrifice may lead to a more grim outcome. Nathan Price is a war veteran as well as a pastor and father; however this combination of things paired with the constant reminder of his company dying in the Bataan Death March creates a character with a flawed set of values willing to risk his own life as well as his families lives in order to save the souls of the Congolese. The creation of the character of Nathan Price was one heavily influenced by the men who fought in WW2 and struggle with the deaths of many of their friends.
In the book Seedfolks, a character named Kim enters a vacant lot in her town, Cleveland, Ohio, to plant Lima Beans to honor her father, who passed away before Kim was even born. While Kim is in the process of planting her beans and watering them daily, people around the vacant lot being to notice her actions . Many people followed what Kim was doing and made their own little garden, which causes the community of Cleveland to be together and to communicate with one another. Throughout the book many characters come and go in the garden, and each character shares something in common with someone else. The garden brings people together, and helps them communicate with one another, without the garden, some people might never have communicated with someone that has a different appearance as them. The novel Seedfolks shows us, that the garden changed everyone’s perspectives on people in their community and how they judge them by appearance. It shows how you can give someone chances, before you can judge them. Some people that show this theme, are Kim, Ana, Sae Young, Maricela, Sam, and Curtis.
The speaker then introduces nature as a female entity, which coincides with the perception of “Mother Nature.” as a female entity. “And from the fields the flowers and plants allure, / Where nature was most plain and pure” (3-4). The words “plain and pure” imply that nature, in its original, untouched state, has a sort of purity associated with a virgin maiden. Before coming into contact with “man,” nature has a pristine and naïve characteristic. However, that will change as soon after “man” establishes a position of power over nature. Mankind traps nature within “the gardens square” (5), and he begins to change the plants, presumably by grafting them together or selectively breeding them to produce more desirable and colorful traits. This “Garden square,” with its “dead and standing pool of air” (6). could be interpreted as the cramped interior of the brothel where the women are forced to work, with four walls trapping them on every side. Later in the poem, too, the garden is referred to as a “green seraglio” (27). A seraglio is the women’s apartment area of an Ottoman palace. This was an
To bring all these ideas together, it could be read that the garden is a description of her childhood, filled with innocence, purity, good memories, all sorts of beautiful things that blocked her view of the world outside. replacing the garden with grass is a way of showing that she needs to let go of these things in order to live a life with potential for something greater.
She said, “The chasm of distance that once stood between us was gone, all because of that hyacinth. That exquisite little hyacinth. He pulled it out from under dad’s garden, sealed in a ziploc bag. Yes, a ziploc bag with his precious offering of love and life inside. His offering required no explanation.” This is the beginning of her ethnography that shows what a garden symbolises to Laurie Thorp, and how it can bring peace and unity to everyone. She believes that a garden can bring people together, which can be a solution to our woundedness. I feel like she is also trying to show her deep abiding connection to the earth. One of the places where healing took place in the story of the garden is when Laurie Thorp tried to convince the teachers at Jonesville elementary school teachers that her research is solid in page 19. At first when she was trying to present her idea to the teachers earlier in the book, she was not successful, and the researchers seemed uninterested, but in page 19 when Laurie Thorp managed to explain the benefit the garden can have as a whole, new voices started to emerge like gloria that called her “you are very typical”. Another place where healing took place as the story of the garden unfolded is in page 21, when Laurie Thorp talked about how “the garden created a space amid the turmoil and scrutiny of schooling for us to feel graced. wounded as we all were, there was a reason, finally to give thanks: a
Elisa’s flower garden is also shown as isolated as it is placed within the confines of a wire fence that “protect her flower garden from cattle and dogs and chicken” (Steinbeck, 207). It is from this fenced-in garden Elisa witnesses her husband and a ranch worker “ride up the pale yellow hillside in search of the steers.” (Steinbeck, 208). There is a tone in the writing that suggest Elisa is ready to escape the confines of her fenced-in garden and join the men on the hill doing something different than working in the flower garden. This illustrates the literal boundaries Elisa has, and boundaries society bounds women by.
The main character is Elisa Allen, whose boredom and frustration are reflected in the beauty of her beloved garden. She cares for her chrysanthemums as a mother cares for her children. She places “the wire fence that protected her flower garden from cattle
“The garden!” I screamed. I leaped out of bed and ran outside, where I saw the little girl that taunted me today. Then I looked at the garden. It was absolutely destroyed. At first, I was enraged but then I saw the little girl was crying.
A garden that holds your secrets, that is a secret itself, holds a special spot in the book “The Secret Garden”. The garden is described as an overgrown hidden beauty that has not been seen for ten years. The woman who created the garden passed away because of an accident; in turn, her husband becomes bitter and wrathful. The door which led to the garden was locked and the key was buried while the orders were given for no one to enter the garden again. There’s more to the garden than just being hid away. The garden is a secret to some very important characters in this story, but why? Perhaps the overgrown secret may even have a secret of its own.