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Similes
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipling's style in "The Gardener" is simple, straightforward, and swift. This is noticeable in his choice to keep the narrator from dwelling on either the funny or the sad bits of the narrative. The story moves quickly, and the reader has an experience that mirrors that of a parent who feels that their child grew up too quickly. More specifically, Kipling's pace exemplifies Helen's sense that something good slipped away from her too fast. Kipling nevertheless takes the time to be playful with his language and expertly uses colloquial diction to echo various characters' chatter through the narration. The story may be sad, but it still contains a number of light and funny moments.
Although the main subject of the story is the affection between Helen and Michael, Kipling manages to depict their bond without resorting to sentimentality. In fact, the reader at times feels shocked by his lack of ceremony when describing the shelling that kills Michael and when describing Helen's loss. A reader might choose to connect the unceremoniousness in Kipling's descriptions of the war to his painful experience of losing his own son to it. The first time Kipling properly slows down the narrator's pace is when Helen makes it to the cemetery. In a way, this is the first time Michael's death becomes real. Because Kipling's son went missing in the war, he never received a proper burial.
At the same time, Kipling does address the war and its effects with a ceremonious writing style, through the epigraph. He was known for his poetry in addition to his fiction, and the solemn lines that open the story come from a poem he wrote that is set in a World War I cemetery. Thus, in "The Gardener," Kipling addresses the senselessness of the war through multiple registers, perhaps suggesting that no writing style is sufficient for completely translating the horror of war into words.
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