61 pages • 2 hours read
Julia KellyThe Last Garden in England
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Political Context: The English Garden and British Colonization
In each of the novel’s three time periods, the garden rooms at Highbury House function in different ways according to the needs and circumstances of the characters. For Venetia Smith, the gardens are a source of independence and creativity during an era when women had little recourse to either; for Diana and Beth, the gardens become a source of comfort and peace during a time of war; for Stella, the gardens represent an obstacle to her desire for escape class-based confines; and for Emma, the gardens symbolize a continuity between the past and her present, providing her with a source of stability.
Venetia works on the gardens’ design in 1907, during the Edwardian period, which followed the long reign of Queen Victoria. This brief period is known as an extension of the Victorian era, having similar preoccupations with propriety and class, and as a golden age before the social and political upheavals caused by World War I (1914-1918). During this period, the British Empire dominated the world stage through imperialism and colonization, which exploited the people and resources of countries in the Global South. Aimé Césaire discusses these dynamics in his 1955 work Discourse on Colonialism. The traditional English garden, which represented class status and an idealized form of nature, was made possible by the importation of exotic plants cultivated by Britain’s colonial subjects abroad.
The English garden symbolized all that was quintessentially British in the face of an ever-expanding empire. The garden also represented an alternative to the processes of industrialization and mechanization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sydney Wilcox, Highbury House’s current owner, notes that the farm property, now run by Henry Jones, “had weathered a world war, industrial agriculture, and countless other changes and remained in the family to this day” (79). The land occupied by Highbury House, its garden rooms, and the neighboring farm (which was once part of the original property) has survived long enough to become a cultural and historical artifact.
Historical Context: English Gardens During World War II
During World War II, Highbury House, its residents, and its gardens endured the effects of the war effort. The House was requisitioned to serve as a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers, and Diana Symonds, her son, and her staff shared the quarters and grounds with nurses, soldiers, and other support staff. The gardens themselves were almost destroyed to make way for more food plantings, as was the case for many gardens across the country as the government launched an educational “Dig for Victory” campaign to encourage people to grow food (Davison, Fiona. “Digging for Victory.” Royal Horticultural Society). Rationing was in effect for many goods, from food (such as powdered milk and eggs) to paper (Beth sketches on recycled letters) to clothing (Beth cannot make a proper wedding dress). The Land Army recruited and trained women, colloquially known as land girls, to work in agricultural jobs that men left behind when they went to war. Some of these women worked in so-called victory gardens in private residences, as Beth does.
The trauma of loss and fear during the war were assuaged by forays into the gardens, overgrown and untended though they were. Emma’s act of recovering the garden’s past honors its role in the war.
