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The Door in the Wall
The garden in “The Door in the Wall” symbolizes a place of perfect contentment and peace, an escape from the competition and vanity of everyday life. The garden, lush and expansive, full of flowers, tame animals, and kind friends, is a dream-like world, in which Wallace feels that lightness and happiness exist in the very air he breathes. He discovers the garden behind the door in the wall when he is only five years old, and experiences a feeling like homecoming—contentment, belonging, and joy—for the first time in his life. There, happily playing with other children, Wallace forgets the outside world, the strictness of his father, and the loneliness of his life.
When a woman in the garden shows him a book containing pictures of his life, however, and he wishes to turn the page past his present moment—a metaphorical indication of his focus towards the future—he finds himself shut out of the garden. In this way, the garden acts for Wallace as a perfect moment of childhood, now forever lost to him. In addition, the garden is set up as being entirely at odds with any ambition or even a desire to know what happens in the future. The garden is a heaven of sorts, but as a heaven it is entirely static, outside of time or progress, and as such incompatible with the material world.
Wallace’s loss of the perfect garden also evokes the Garden of Eden; Wallace transgresses by thoughtlessly seeking knowledge from the picture book and is banished, unable to return. To live in the Garden of Eden is to retain the innocence of childhood. Wallace’s early advancement, his ability to speak from a young age, and the ambition instilled in him by his father make him incompatible with the perfect peace of the garden. The garden’s resemblance to the Garden of Eden implies that Wallace, ambitious and quick to grow up, can visit the garden, but can’t stay or, in later years, return. His own priorities, his desire for success and achievement, prevent him from reaching the garden. As long as Wallace is ambitious, he cannot have perfect peace. The garden therefore becomes a symbol of the lost world of true contentment which Wallace is banished from by age, by transgression, or by his own choices.
The Garden Quotes in The Door in the Wall
The The Door in the Wall quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Garden. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 1
Quotes
Then very haltingly at first, but afterwards more easily, he began to tell of the thing that was hidden in his life, the haunting memory of a beauty and a happiness that filled his heart with insatiable longings, that made all the interests and spectacle of worldly life seem dull and tedious and vain to him.
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It was very difficult for Wallace to give me his full sense of that garden into which he came.
(…) In the instant of coming into it one was exquisitely glad—as only in rare moments, and when one is young and joyful one can be glad in this world.
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But— it’s odd—there’s a gap in my memory. I don’t remember the games we played. I never remembered. Afterwards, as a child, I spent long hours trying, even with tears, to recall the form of that happiness. I wanted to play it all over again— in my nursery—by myself. No! All I remember is the happiness and two dear playfellows who were most with me…
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Poor little wretch I was!—brought back to this grey world again! As I realised the fulness of what had happened to me, I gave way to quite ungovernable grief. And the shame and humiliation of that public weeping and my disgraceful home-coming remain with me still.
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Part 3
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‘If 1 had stopped,’ I thought, ‘I should have missed my scholarship, I should have missed Oxford— muddled all the fine career before me! I begin to see things better!’ I fell musing deeply, but I did not doubt then this career of mine was a thing that merited sacrifice.
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The Garden Symbol Timeline in The Door in the Wall
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Garden appears in The Door in the Wall. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1
Wallace finds himself in a garden. The garden’s air was intoxicating, and breathing it gave a feeling of lightness and goodness....
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The garden is gone, as is the grave woman whom Wallace had been with a moment before....
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Wallace interrupts his story to say that he has tried to describe the garden — which haunts him still — to Redmond as clearly as he is able. But...
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...by his father, his nurse, and his aunt. He attempts to tell them about the garden, but his father does not believe him, and gives him his first thrashing for telling...
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...Wallace cries into his pillow and prays to God to make him dream of the garden. He thought so intensely about the garden that, he now admits to Redmond, he might...
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Part 2
...comes across a long white wall with a green door: the door to the enchanted garden. Wallace realizes with a jolt that the garden, which he had come to think was...
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...had seen the door in the wall. He is certain that the people in the garden will be glad to see him. He imagines the garden as a nice place he...
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Yet Wallace is so preoccupied by thoughts of the garden that he is unable to keep it to himself. Even though he has the feeling...
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...bigger boys at school, who tease him but also want to hear more about the garden. Wallace is both flattered by the attention from these older boys and disgusted and ashamed...
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Wallace leads the way to the garden, nervous, flushed, and teary-eyed. He again feels misery and shame for having shared a special...
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...but because he now realized that he would not be able to return to the garden with his old playmates and the friendly women. He continues to look for the door...
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Part 3
The friends and atmosphere of the garden are dear to Wallace but seem remote. He sees new opportunities in the real world,...
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...served his career and done much hard work, but he has still dreamt of the garden a thousand times and glimpsed the door four more times.
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...his youth, the world was so bright and interesting and full of meaning that the garden seemed soft and remote by comparison. Who, he asks, wants to pet panthers while on...
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...his focus on punctuality and thought that he might have at least looked into the garden and waved to the panthers. By then, however, he knew that he would not find...
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...reveals that he now finds life toilsome and its rewards cheap. He longs for the garden. He tells Redmond that he’s seen “it” three times. Redmond, shocked, asks if he means...
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...the door, wonders what might happen if he excuses himself, says goodnight, and enters the garden. Nervous and giddy about his conversation with Gurker, he imagines his companions would think him...
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...my success…” and crushes it in his fist. He confides that the loss of the garden is crushing him. He reveals that he has done no work but what is extremely...
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