Student Question
What four things does Nora compare the garden to in Seedfolks?
Quick answer:
In Seedfolks, Nora compares the garden to a "second home," a "soap opera," a "miniature city," and a "mind-altering drug." These comparisons highlight the garden's emotional depth, its daily surprises, its diverse and organized plots, and its therapeutic effects.
Nora is greatly inspired by the garden, particularly its healing effect on Mr. Myles, her invalid charge. Through her encouragement, Mr. Myles participates in the garden and finds renewed purpose in his otherwise empty life. Nora, too, comes to appreciate the garden. She sees it as the jewel of the city, beyond what tourists or visitors can understand. Nora refers to the garden in various ways, using some creative comparisons.
First, she calls the garden a “second home.” It is only a small circle of earth, and yet both Nora and Mrs. Myles find satisfaction, comfort, and friendship there. This is not a boring home, however. Nora says, “It has suspense, tragedy , startling developments—a soap opera growing out of the ground.” In that line, she compares the garden to a soap opera, with its daily ups and downs of emotion and various surprises around every corner. Later, remembering that...
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Ancient Egyptians used gardens as medicine for treating mental illness, she describes the garden as “a mind-altering drug we took daily.” Nora also refers to the garden as “a miniature city,” with each plot reflecting its owner’s nature. Some are organized and tidy, while others look haphazard. Together, they become something as diverse and beautiful as the neighborhood itself.
What four things does Nora compare the garden to in Seedfolks?
Nora is a British nurse who looks after Mr. Myles. She seems to have an interest in history and literature, as she is often making literary comparisons.
However, she doesn't make too many about the garden itself, so this answer includes comparisons she makes about the garden and other things.
In the first comparison she makes on page 47, she compares Mr. Myles's happiness at being in the garden and the way the scents of the garden light up his senses to "a salmon travelling upstream through his past."
As they watch others work in the garden, on page 48, she says there are so many different-looking plots, some tidy and some not, that the garden is like a "miniature city."
She compares the excitement of gardening itself to soap operas and tragedies: "It has suspense, tragedy, startling developments—a soap opera growing out of the ground."
On page 49, Nora compares a child's habit of putting her seeds in a sardine can and burying them to "the Pilgrims of old," who, the reader can presume, used to bury things as well.
Again on page 49, Nora talks about how the Egyptians used to say that walking through a garden was a cure for madness. If that's the case, then, she states that the garden is a "mind-altering drug we took daily."