'The compelling series of vignettes entitled, ‘The Merritt Garden’, is an exploration of the tragedy of devotion depicted in a gothic genre story. Devotion is an important belief in society and to an individual. We seek it out from those around us and often find ourselves devoted to others. Although the concept is portrayed as beautiful and miraculous, I personally find that devotion comes with the risk of tragedy. My story aims to highlight the importance of unrequited devotion through the use of storytelling.
Statement of Aims:
The compelling series of vignettes entitled, ‘The Merritt Garden’, is an exploration of the tragedy of devotion depicted in a gothic genre story. Devotion is an important belief in society and to an individual. We seek it out from those around us and often find ourselves devoted to others. Although the concept is portrayed as beautiful and miraculous, I personally find that devotion comes with the risk of tragedy. My story aims to highlight the importance of unrequited devotion through the use of storytelling.
In ‘The Merritt Garden’, three focus “characters” are the gardener(Edgar), the girl(Katherine), and the garden(The Merritt). The story is about an abandoned residence, its gardener and garden, and the neighbour. The names chosen for the characters were of great importance. The Merritt, in particular, was a key character, whose name means “boundary” or “gate”, the garden in fact is a boundary/gate between the living world and a world where the deceased were able to capture victims. Edgar can stand for “fortune” which in his case was his misfortune that led to his end. My final character Katherine was portrayed as a naive girl that had a love for adventure and the neighbouring garden - her name means pure - I found it fitting to her innocence.
The structure of my written piece followed a series of paragraphs that honed in on specific parts of the narrative that demonstrated the devotion of both the gardener and Katherine. Edgar had devoted his time to a garden that had no hope and was falling apart, “3 am sharp the vehicle was destined to the Merritt, down each road with the sleeping houses mocking the 3 am-worker.”, he sacrifices his time for sleep, this was shown through the personification of the “sleeping houses” that mocked his effort towards this garden. I find that this can be perceived in two different ways; an individual that devotes all their time to a single person being put down about it - in a sense, it is about jealousy and perhaps those who have had similar experiences may be laughing at his misfortune while they are living a freeing lifestyle in comparison. The other way it may be perceived is the houses represent people that can see that the relationship between the garden and gardener is not mutual. In the perspective of Edgar, he is literally seeing all these houses that are yet to wake up; they mock him for his sleep deprivation. It is reasonable that Edgar feels devoted to the Merritt given his duration with it. However, Katherine had only just discovered the Merritt but almost immediately dedicated her time to the garden as well, going against her family and sneaking into the neighbour’s yard.
The narrative piece is written in the third person, very little monologue was employed throughout the story, and no interaction between Katherine and Edgar was created. In ‘The escape’, a dialogue between two unknown characters was used to imply that the story was being told between two people.
-“Tranquillity” he hummed,
“Ah yes, silence would be her assumed peace”, she sighed.-
It was also used to show that outsiders of the story will always assume a happy ending. The limit of dialogue and monologue was manipulated to reflect how a relationship can almost feel isolating when it is unrequited. “Lovers alike always have a hold on you even after desperately strangling the life out of you.” I used this contrast to directly address the concept. There is a tragedy in knowing someone has hurt you but somehow they still lie deep within your heart and mind.
The main message is that devotion is a beautiful thing however it is rather tragic as it can lead to the metaphorical or literal death of someone if it is not mutual. Ironically, there is almost a beauty in rediscovering yourself after being trapped and exhausted by unrequited love.
