The Night Gardener

Stories play a dominant role throughout The Night Gardener. Sometimes the stories are told by the characters themselves, and they also appear in the narration as allusions to classic tales. In both cases, the mechanics of the novel are heavily influenced by the myriad patterns of fiction and the common symbols of literature. In this way, the act of storytelling takes on a life of its own and almost comes to have the same presence as a character in the novel. Through the tales that Molly and Hester tell, as well as the books that the tree gives Penny, The Night Gardener illustrates the many powers of stories.

The power of storytelling is first evidenced in Molly’s own origins. For as long as Molly can remember, she has been able to tell stories that keep people entranced. She doesn’t know how she does it, only that she has “a way of talking that ma[kes] other people believe in magic things” (34). This power works wonders, whether she’s telling stories to entertain or to influence. She often makes up stories about magic to entertain Penny, which endears the girl to her and shows how stories can bring people together. Similarly, she makes up tales about her parents for Kip. While they are also entertaining, these tales are primarily meant to conceal the deaths of their parents from Kip, and ultimately, they make Kip feel as though Molly isn’t telling him something. Accordingly, he is hurt by Molly’s deception when he finally learns the truth about their parents. These two situations show how stories told for the same purpose can have vastly different effects. Molly’s stories for Penny are entertainment for the sake of entertainment. They don’t hide anything, and as a result, Penny appreciates the tales for what they are. By contrast, the stories that Molly makes up about her parents are entertainment meant to hide something, and even though she hides the truth to protect Kip, the stories lose all entertainment value once the truth is revealed.

While Molly’s storytelling mostly revolves around the tales she makes up, Hester tells stories based on known myths, and thus her storytelling serves as a source of information and mentorship throughout the novel. For example, Hester offers Kip and Molly a legend that matches what they are experiencing at the Windsor house. If Molly and Kip weren’t faced with the danger of the Night Man and the tree, Hester’s stories might be entertaining, but the truth behind the legend transforms the stories from a spooky fiction to a terrifying reality. Molly’s reaction to the story shows how closeness to a tale makes us experience it differently. She is angry because the legend doesn’t offer a resolution to the very real predicament she finds herself in. If Molly weren’t actually living the legend, she might have enjoyed spinning her own ending or speculating how the original concluded, but instead, the dire importance of the tale to her current situation inspires nothing but anger in her when the legend does not provide her with a solution.

Molly and Hester both show how oral storytelling can influence its audience. Stories come in many forms, and the books that Penny receives from the tree also show the power of written tales. Before the beginning of The Night Gardener, Constance would often tell Penny bedtime stories about “Princess Penny,” a royal version of Penny who went on grand adventures. Since moving to the house, however, Constance no longer does this, and in the absence of these oral tales, Penny seeks a more concrete type of story that she can revisit whenever she wants. The books therefore offer Penny an escape from her dull yet sometimes frightening life at the house. She understands that the books are from the tree and are therefore possibly dangerous, but her desire for stories that offer her an escape proves greater than her fear. The books about Princess Penny represent the hope that stories can provide, and their physical manifestation likewise symbolizes how powerfully stories can influence people’s lives. Stories have the power to inform, entertain, and transform people. Thus, the characters of the novel use stories for a variety of different purposes, but no matter what the intention, the final product always has a profound effect upon its audience.