The Night Gardener

Kip is Molly’s younger brother and the second point-of-view character of The Night Gardener. Kip was born with a disability affecting his leg, and as a result, it is difficult for him to walk without the aid of a crutch. However, Kip doesn’t let his physical disability stop him from accomplishing what he needs to in life, and his resilience and strength are his greatest assets. The last thing Kip’s parents gave him was a wood-carved crutch, which Kip calls “Courage” because he “like[s] the idea that courage [is] a thing a person [can] hold on to and use” (27). Kip spends much of the book being fearful and relying on Courage to bolster him. When Alistair throws Courage into the river, Kip is finally forced to stand up for himself both literally and figuratively, and he finds that the trials he has faced allow him to do so without any type of crutch at all.

Kip’s character arc exemplifies the book’s theme of The Link Between Desire and Dependency. The crutch named Courage is both a mobility aid and something Kip depends on emotionally. The crutch thus represents the hope that his parents will return and that everything will one day go back to the way it was. In addition, it serves as a safety blanket that Kip wields against his fears, and like a blanket, it doesn’t help him overcome what he’s afraid of. Instead, it only provides false comfort, holding him back until it is finally discarded. In the latter chapters when Kip chooses not to use the balm from the tree, he is also overcoming his reliance on Courage as an emotional crutch, even if he is not yet aware of this pattern. By the end of the book, Kip realizes that he doesn’t need a physical manifestation of courage because he already has courage of his own. Instead, he chooses to use a crutch because it makes life easier, not because he feels like he’s missing something without it.

Penny is the youngest of the Windsor children. She hates living at the house because it’s boring, and she views the arrival of Molly as something new and exciting. Before moving to the house and feeling the effects of the tree’s magic, she and the other Windsors were healthy and vibrant, but after a year in the house, Penny’s appearance has dulled, and she wears her hair in braids that hang “lifelessly from her head like a pair of black willow fronds” (35). Penny’s unhealthy appearance represents how the tree drains her life force as a result of accepting books; likewise, the books themselves symbolize using fiction as an escape from unpleasant realities. Penny wants things in her family to be different, but since she doesn’t have the power to change them, she relies on the tales that the tree creates. At the end of the book, Molly convinces Penny to leave the books behind, which shows how relying too much on fiction can pull us out of the real world.

Constance is the woman of the Windsor house and a formidable force. When Molly first meets her, she is amazed by Constance’s stern confidence, and for Molly, Constance offers “a rare glimpse into another world” (47). Constance represents a departure from typical women of the Victorian Era. The prevailing norms of the time told women that they were to obey their husbands and care for their homes and children. In contrast to this social norm, Constance frequently goes against Mr. Windsor, and she is equipped neither to care for her children nor to keep house, as evidenced by the mess Molly finds on arrival and by Alistair’s obsession with sweets. Having been raised in high society, Constance was expected to marry well and have servants to do the day-to-day work of cleaning and childrearing. Constance’s relationship with the tree is also partly to blame for the state of her home and family. Rather than learning the skills she needs, she is focused on the past, as shown by the many replicas of her wedding ring.

Mr. Windsor is the root cause of his family’s problems, both with money and with the tree. In appearance, he is smaller than Molly pictured him, and he blinks a lot “as though he [is] afraid that someone might strike him” (66). Like Constance, Mr. Windsor subverts the typical upper middle-class man of the Victorian Era. Rather than being domineering and assertive in his personal and professional affairs, Mr. Windsor is timid and easily pushed aside, something that Auxier represents by giving the character a stuttering speech pattern. Mr. Windsor’s tragic flaw is his desire to do the right thing for those he loves. This overpowering urge leads him to make poor choices in the hopes that all of these problems will be solved. Mr. Windsor’s poor business choices lead to the equally poor decision to return to the tree; in each instance, he is convinced that money will be the solution to all his problems. As it turns out, the pursuit of money becomes the indirect cause of all his woes.

Alistair is Penny’s older brother and behaves as a bully for the majority of the novel. Like Constance and Penny, he longs for the life he used to have and uses the tree to get what he wants to try and make up for how things have changed. Alistair’s spends much of the book tormenting those he perceives as being weaker than himself. This trend is demonstrated when he buries Penny in the hole by the tree and throws Kip’s crutch into the river. Alistair is not strong or brave, and he hides this fact by making others feel weak and afraid. The combination of Kip’s courage in standing up to him and Constance’s life-threatening sickness finally help Alistair to find his strength and courage, making him a dynamic character despite the fact that he remains static throughout the majority of the novel. The climactic events of the story cause Alistair to realize that he is only powerful when others let him be so. In the climactic sequence, Alistair uses his own strength and skill to outmaneuver the Night Man and ultimately rescue Kip.