H.G. WELLS: THE DOOR IN THE WALL, A BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
This paper examines H.G. WellÆs short story The Door in the Wall (see: Wells, 2003, Reprint edition) from a biographic perspective. The paper describes the plot and main themes of the story and relates these to the events, circumstances, and relationships that shaped WellÆs life. The paper ends with commentaries related to the nature of the man and also presents a personal opinion about H.G. Wells.
The Door in the Wall: Essential Themes in Relation To The Life of H. G. Wells
Simply put, in the story The Door in the Wall, the reader is told about a promising public figure, a friend of the narrator named Lionel Wallace, who reveals to the narrator that there is a door that leads into an enchanted garden. When he was very young, Wallace found this door, and spotting the garden beyond it, ran directly through the entrance. There in the garden, he experienced great joy, magic, and wonder. Indeed, of this experience, Wallace states::
There was something in the very air of it that exhilarated, that gave one a sense of lightness and good happening and well being; there was something in the sight of it that made all its colour clean and perfect and subtly luminous. In the instant of coming into it one was exquisitely glad--as only in rare moments and when one is young and joyful one can be glad in this world. And everything was beautiful there . .
In comparison to the foregoing, the regular daily world seemed grim and gray and Wallace states that he felt wretched at his return. However, while the experience of the garden was mystical and magical, from this point on Wallace, although haunted, even obsessed by the garden, retreats from re-entering it, settling instead for glimpses. He sees it in some sense as a distraction from the obligations and responsibilities of life. By the time Wallace relates the story to the narrator, he has become a man used up by his job, d...